The Lives We Lead
by puddingisevil
Summary: Alex loves Shelley.Shelley loves Alex. she is the only one who can stop his nightmares. but what happens when his worst nightmare comes to life? suddenly she cant do anything but remember him and all he can do is forget...
1. Chapter 1: nightmares

**hey everybody! so i dont know if this is gonna be read by anyone and im not sure im even uploading this properly or what. antway this is my first ever fangic. i suck at everything that has to do with technology and stuff. so if anyone wants to help me figure out **

**1) how to make a profile (i told you im hopeless)**

**2)how to write a summary if i dont have one when i do figure out how to upload this**

**3)if this story is any good at all or if its too fluffy or too slow paced or too cliche or whatever**

**4) what a "mary sue" is so i can avoid it (it sounds like a bad thing)**

**leave me a review or PM me (also if you have any useful ideas on what should happen next. i have ideas if anyone wants to keep reading but most times the readers ideas are better than the authors). i have no idea if i'm accepting anonymous stuff so plz dont be offended if something doesn't work right. oh and being from my part of america some of my vocab is screwed up. just a heads up. and if i get even one person who thinks i should go on with the story then this will not be a one shot. i feel wierd writing this. its like im talking to my self. anyway moving on...**

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Alex was having a nightmare. It seemed to be a really bad one too, at least to K-Unit. But no matter how much they wanted to, there was nothing they could do for their unit's youngest member.

Last time they had tried, Snake remembered, Alex had been startled out of his nightmare by Eagle shaking his shoulders. Before anyone knew what was happening, Eagle had a broken arm and three fractured ribs. Wolf, who had tried to get between the soldier and the dazed teen, had one hell of a concussion and a broken jaw. And Alex, though not hurt physically, had felt so guilty he didn't eat and barely spoke to anyone for two days.

And the teen, because that's what he was no matter what MI6 said, probably would have starved if it hadn't been for her. Shelley had convinced him that he needed his strength if he was going to keep anyone safe.

Startled out of his reminiscing by soft voices, Snake glanced at the rest of his unit. They seemed to be trying to stop Shelley from doing something.

_Probably something everybody could live without having to go through,_ Snake thought wryly.

"Just let me try," he heard her say. She twisted out of Wolf's grip, much to his embarrassment, and started to make her way over to Alex's thrashing body.

The entire unit watched with bated breath as they watched the young girl make her way over to Alex. And they hoped to God that someone would finally be able to help the unfortunate boy.

They watch as she made her way and stood next to him. They watched as he threw the first punch and as she grabbed his fist before it could land. They watched as he immediately started to panic and then, how seconds later, his entire body relaxed as Shelly leaned over him. He stopped thrashing and lay back on the bed.

K-Unit just stood there shocked. They had tried everything to cure his nightmares. Sleeping pills, therapy, restraints (though that was probably the worst idea they had ever had. Not surprisingly, it came from Eagle.). And yet simply the touch of one person calmed him down in a way that seemed impossible.

Looking up again, they realized that Shelley had smoothed out his clenched fist and now held his hand while sitting on the edge of the bed.

* * *

Shelley saw the Unit's hesitation as they stared at Alex. She saw the pain cross his face. Worse pain than she had ever seen on anyone's face before. He was being tortured by his subconscious mind and they couldn't do anything. She knew she had to do something; the tortured expression on his face was tearing her heart apart.

She got up and felt a hand grab at her wrist. She almost flipped him, whoever it was before she realized it was Wolf.

"Just let me try it," she said looking back at him.

She walked over to him and got ready to block his attacks. She stopped his punch and leaned over him, noticing as his body panicked and then relaxed. She watched as his expression changed and emotions passed over his face. She smiled as she saw the joy on his face. And then she heard him say her name quietly and his face was taken over by love and trained or not, she couldn't help the tears that came. It was more emotion than he had ever shown when he was awake. She knew he loved her just as much as she loved him but he had always been too closed off to show how much. She didn't even realize that he had wrapped his arm around her waist and she was being pulled onto the bed. She was too mesmerized by the emotions on his face.

* * *

Alex knew he was having a nightmare. But this was probably the worst one he had ever had. He saw the faces of every person that was dead because of him, whether they deserved it or not. He saw their broken families. He heard their last words and saw them take their last breaths. He relived every beating he had ever endured, every accusation ever hurled at him, everything sight, sound, touch, even every smell that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He fought trying, somehow, to save the ones he had doomed. He cried for them and fought for them but they all kept _dying!_ He couldn't save them. Suddenly through his fearful state, he felt a presence near him. He struck out and felt as the presence blocked him. He started to panic. But suddenly he smelled it…

_Lilacs and vanilla….._

Suddenly his entire body relaxed. His muscles loosened and he felt budding warmth in his chest. Confused for a moment, he pondered the feeling. _Safe…_ Alex felt safe! He felt safer than he remembered ever having felt before. In his mind, he saw that piercing gaze that saw through every lie or mistruth he ever told. Those emerald green jewels that could detect every secret and weakness he had. He felt the soft, curly black hair that he could wrap around his fingers and reached just past her tanned shoulders. He saw her determined gaze when staring into the gaze of the enemy….he stiffened. But then he felt her smoothen out his hand and he remembered the way her gaze softened when she looked at him. He remembered her musical laughter after she had him pinned during a wrestling match. He remembered her dancing around the room when she won the tickets to a concert during a radio call-in contest for his birthday. He remembered her witty humor and biting sarcasm so much like his own. He smiled as he remembered how no matter how much they fought; _too alike as Jack had said, neither_ could sleep when they were mad at each other. He remembered listening to her sing in the shower or as she was cooking when she didn't realize he was listening. And he remembered the day he had realized how for once, he had found someone that would love him no matter how many times he did something unforgiveable even by himself. He thought of how they never actually had to say the words to know they loved each other. She wouldn't be scared off by MI6 or by any other shit that happened to him. And now she was the only person he had left since Jack had been deported and was refused contact with Alex.

Needing comfort, he subconsciously wrapped his arm around Shelley's waist and pulled her close to him.

* * *

The Unit saw the emotions pass over the young super spy's face. They saw him smile as he relaxed. They saw his face turn grave as he thought of something that bothered him. His features smoothed out and he smiled widely. Then they saw a look they couldn't identify. For a long time they couldn't figure it out. They just knew it made them happy to look at him like this. Suddenly Cat, Fox's replacement and the most empathetic of them realized: it was pure joy. He looked happier than anyone had ever seen him. Then he saddened a bit but soon, his joyful expression came back. They watched as he wrapped his arm around her waist. And a look of the purest emotion in the world, _love_, came over his face. They knew she was the only person in the world who could make him like this and they knew that for him and for his happiness, they would give their lives for her. They also knew that this was a very private moment. He would hate to know that they had witnessed this. So they turned away out of respect for the man who they trusted with their lives.

* * *

Everyone went back to their business. Wolf was lost in thoughts of the boy. He couldn't imagine everything that had to have happened to him for him to have such a torturous dream. Seventeen years old and _twenty four missions? It was insane!_ Wolf thought of the six missions he had been on with him. _If every mission was like that_, Wolf thought, _I'd be messed up too ._Ever since Cub had gotten to Brecon Beacons a week ago, he'd had these nightmares everyday and every morning everyone would pretend nothing had happened. They would tease each other and he would smile though it was never completely to his eyes.

His thoughts turned to Shelley. He remembered how they had met on the last mission they had been on with Alex. Their mission had been to bring down the last of Scorpia by any means necessary. All he really knew though, was that Alex had ran into her on his way to get into position and that somehow the two of them had blown up the main meeting room, killing the board of directors of Scorpia and creating a distraction that helped MI6 pick up every single remaining Scorpian. The girl was almost as much of an enigma as Alex was to the SAS. He wished he knew more about her, but he also knew that she had helped them bring down one of the most feared terrorist organizations in the world and that he trusted her, partly at least. He knew she had a personal vendetta against Scorpia but he didn't feel like he had to know. He knew she was an amazing fighter and MI6's newest recruit after the fall of Scorpia. He also knew that she was willing to give her life for the unitand he knew that any one of them would give their lives for her.

* * *

Shelley was sitting with Alex's head in her lap. She ran her fingers through his amazingly soft light brown hair. She thought of the first time they had met….

_She had been about to enter the door of the main meeting room of the Scorpia board. She had to finish wiring up the explosives before the directors got there. Suddenly she heard something in the vents. Knowing from her past experience as a Scorpian that the vents were often used in training exercises, she hid in the shadows._ _A vent opened overhead. She heard a pair of footsteps make their way over to her. As quick as a snake, she had the person in a headlock and her Beretta handgun jabbed into his temple._

"_Say a word, and I blow your brains through the wall, Scorpian" she growled._

"_WHOA, hey hey hey I am NOT a Scorpian."_

_She knew from his voice that this was a boy about her age. _

"_I'm in here, so obviously I'm not stupid. Scorpia trains their recruits to save their own asses. How do I know you're not lying?" _

"_How do I know YOU'RE not a Scorpian?"_

_Starting to get pissed off, she tightened her hold on him._

"_And now you've pissed me off. If I was a Scorpian, I wouldn't have threatened to kill you."_

"_But you might be a Scorpian who knows who I am, in which case it makes perfect sense that you threatened to kill me."_

_Shelley was running out of time. She couldn't afford to lose any more time. She had to wire up the explosives before the directors and their guards showed up. And she was NOT going to miss the chance to get back at the sick bastards who blew up her life along with millions of others'._

"_If you can show me you're not with Scorpia right now, I'll let you help me with this," she said holding up the explosives. "If you can't, I'm going to tie you up and leave you here to get blown up by this."_

"_What makes you think you have the power to keep me here?"_

"_You're the one in the headlock."_

_Quicker than she thought possible, he twisted out of the headlock, disarmed her, and held up a MI6 I.D. as well as a SAS badge._

_She gasped. "Alex Rider." Her last assignment. The boy she was supposed to have killed when she was working with Scorpia…._

_He let her out of the headlock and handed her weapon and the explosives back to her._

"_Now, let's go blow up some damn scorpians."_

That day she finally accomplished the only goal she had ever had. Ever since she was seven and Shelley found out her parents and brothers were killed, she had vowed to bring them justice. She had gotten herself noticed by Scorpia and trained with them for nine years. She had never killed anyone in all her time there, making excuses of being too weak. Finally she was ready and she had used Scorpia's own training against them.

Less than two weeks later, she had become the second youngest MI6 recruit ever at the age of 16.

Shelley remembered the day Alex was told he would have a partner.

_ Alex was sitting in front of Blunt's desk. He was told he was getting a partner. He was shown her file; he knew her entire past. But he didn't realize that she was younger than him. The file had failed to mention that. And being the teenage boy that he was, he hadn't ever asked Shelley for her name in the Scorpia headquarters. He had no idea what was about to happen. _

_ Shelley walked in and Alex's face went from mild amusement, to shock, anger, and then it went completely blank. Even more so than most of the assassin's faces at Scorpia. His cold voice addressed Blunt._

_ "Don't do this again. Isn't one stolen innocence enough? She doesn't want to lose her life to MI6. She doesn't deserve it! "_

_ Shelley bristled._

"_I'm more than capable of making my own decisions, Alex. I don't need you to tell me what I want and don't want to do. And I will work for MI6 if I choose to. I'm no more innocent than you are. You have read the file; I've seen death and destruction to. Scorpia made sure of that. And I'm going to make sure no sick bastards can ever do what they did again," she said, her musical voice, low and deadly._

_ Alex was surprised and angry. He knew that what she said was true, but this was his idea of Hell! He was trying to help her get out of it dammit! Why couldn't she see that?_

_ "You have no idea what you're getting into! These people are monsters! They won't ever leave you alone if you decide to work for them now! They will destroy you and your loved ones and y-"_

_ "My loved ones are DEAD! I have nothing to lose! And if I don't do this, then I have nothing to gain but a sucky life at an orphanage getting into trouble at school because this is who I am! I am already a part of this! I always was!" she said, voice steadily gaining volume so that she was yelling at the end._

_ Blunt and Mrs. Jones observed in silence until then. _

_ "Seeing as your house is currently empty other than you, Shelley will be staying with you from now on. You will be expected to help keep each other safe should any threat get past our security measures."_

"_But-, "Alex started to protest. _

"_Here are your new Glock 27 handguns. There are extra magazines in this bag. Please try not to hurt anyone who isn't a threat. Unfortunate injuries lead to so much paperwork."_

_They both recognized the dismissal. They stood up and left the room Alex leading the way to the elevators._

**plz plz plz no flames...i dont think i can handle it yet. just tell me bluntly that its too cliche or whatever and leave out the name calling and stuff. my fragile ego cant take it. if you dont like it than dont read on please. unless you think there is hope for me. AHHHHHH! IM GOING TO GO CRAZY...**

**plz tell me how it is. my first reviewer will always hold a special place in my heart. and maybe on my profile if i ever figure out how this works.**


	2. Chapter 2: fights

**Hello! I'm back. Thank you so much to Jessi-endings, mariseje, and prone2dementia for your help/encouragement. It made me reaaaallllly happy! So…moving on...**

**Disclaimer: **I was born in California. I am a high school girl. And my name is Horowitz. Anthony Horowitz.

Not.

I don't own any of the characters in this story except for Shelley!

* * *

_They walked into the elevator in silence. Shelley could feel the anger rolling off of Alex in waves. She didn't really understand it either. But it didn't matter to her. No one tells Shelley what she can or cannot do. _

_ "Why did you have to do it?" Alex said breaking the silence. "I tried to give you an out and you ignored it."_

_The elevator dinged. The two teens made their way to Alex's car: silver Mitsubishi Eclipse. As they got into the car, Shelley started speaking. She knew she had to try and make him understand this if they were going to work together._

_ "I ignored it because it wasn't an out. Not for me anyway. Maybe you can live a normal life after everything you have seen and done. But for me, it's just not possible. I've been in this life since I was seven. I've seen the cruelty in the faces of the sick bastards I met at Scorpia and Malagosto. It's impossible to forget that and move on. Not to mention that everything they ever taught me means that I will never be able to be around people without looking for something that will go wrong. And when it does I will always be in the thick of it. No matter how much you want to think otherwise, even you know that this life is inescapable. It's the life we will always lead." Shelley said._

_ Alex stayed silent through the car ride after that. He knew she was right. And it made him loathe MI6 and Scorpia even more._

_ The car pulled into the driveway. Alex made his way over to the doorway. He opened the door and silently let Shelley into his house and in doing so, silently accepted her as a part of his life._

Alex woke up. He felt the fingers running through his hair and remembered some of what had happened the night before.

"Shelley?" he said, as he looked up at her.

"Hmm?" she replied still lost in her memories.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked and hearing the distress in his voice she leaned down and whispered.

"Like you ever could. You can't land a punch on me when you're awake. What makes you think you're a better fighter when you're asleep?" she joked trying to relieve him.

Evidently it worked because he smiled and said

"Want to give it a go right now?"

She laughed and rolled off the bed.

"Come and get me." She teased, beckoning at him.

He leaped off the bed and they began to spar.

* * *

K-Unit walked in from the showers. They saw the two spies sparring and decided to watch. They were fluid, amazing fighters. Every kick, punch and deflection was perfect. They matched each other in skill but each had their own advantages. Alex was stronger and taller. Shelley was more agile and quick. They couldn't get a single hit on each other!

Eventually Eagle got bored.

"Okay okay we get it! You're super spies. Jeez no need to show off."

Just realizing that they had an audience, the teens stopped fighting. Alex got an unhappy look on his face.

"What, does the sight of us really make you unhappy?" said Snake.

"No it's not that. I should have realized when you came into the room. If you were an enemy, we could very well be dead right now." Alex said mostly to himself.

The Unit just looked at each other. He was right after all. And normally, he would have noticed right away.

"Maybe you just need to eat something. After last night you must be exhausted." Cat said, forgetting that the team had tabooed that topic.

Before Alex could figure out that they had witnessed his "episode" Shelley jumped up, ran to the door and yelled at Alex.

"If you don't take a shower soon, I'm going to use up all the hot water!" she sang the last part and ran to the specially built individual shower next to the regular men's showers.

Alex, having a love for hot showers, ran.

* * *

Soon the entire team was showered and dressed and walked over to the mess hall. They had been given the week off, along with Alex and Shelley, after what had happened.

_Shelley heard a noise upstairs. She had been washing the dishes while Alex took a much needed nap on the couch after school and football practice. Hearing the noise again she made her way upstairs, avoiding the creaky third step to avoid alerting the intruder of her presence. Slowly she rounded a corner, taking her gun out of her waistband as she moved. She pointed it into the room. Nothing was there. Slowly she made her way down the hall. As she reached Jack's old room, she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. The door wasn't locked. It was __always __locked. Someone was here. Suddenly she turned around to face a familiar man._

"_Joseph? How is that possible? I thought they got everyone! You should be-"_

"_Dead? I know. But I had to make sure you didn't destroy what I worked my entire life for. It's been a year Night." He said using her old codename. "And Scorpia is back."_

_Shelley heard the sound of a gun's safety being unlocked. Before she could say or do anything, he pulled the trigger. She collapsed on the ground, a crimson stain spreading over the cloth on her stomach._

_Downstairs, Alex alerted MI6 as the sound of a gunshot woke him up._

_Grabbing the bullet proof Kevlar lined jacket Smithers had provided on some of his first missions, Alex made his way upstairs. He saw a Hispanic man holding a gun and Shelley on the floor with blood all around her._

_Alex lost control. He attacked the man killing him with two fatal strikes. Soon five more men came into the house, surrounding him and Shelley. Immediately, he knocked two of them unconscious. Anyone who got too close to Shelley was killed with a bullet to the head. Two more died like that. Only one man was left. He grinned at Alex. Scorpia never forgive. Scorpia never forget. He jumped out of the window._

_Staring at the gun Alex realized that he had, for the first time, after nineteen missions, killed in cold blood. But before he could think too much he felt blood seeping through his socks._

"_Oh God. Shelley! Shit!" he said._

_Suddenly he saw Fox running towards him. In a daze, Alex saw the other MI6 agents who had arrived; finally, take the two unconscious men in. he saw Fox running with Shelley to the ambulance. He remembered getting into his car and breaking every single traffic law in his haste to follow them to St. Dominic's hospital._

_He remembered being called into MI6 headquarters and being told he was going to Brecon Beacons again. Alex watched emotionlessly at the shock took over the Head's face when he didn't protest like the 4 other times he had had to go there._

_Alex remembered as though through a veil everything that happened until he found out that Shelley was going to live._

_The next part he remembered clearly. He had run into Shelley's room and, seeing her awake, ran to her bed and kissed her for the first time._

_She had been shocked and had just stared at him as he pulled away. Then she had wrapped her arms around him and hugged him as he started to cry. She had never seen him break down, not after his missions, or after Sabina had been killed or ever. And it made her want to protect him. So Shelley did the only thing she could do to make him feel better while she was in the hospital. She made fun of him._

"_Awww does wittle awex need a tissue?" she said in her best baby voice._

_Alex laughed a little through his tears. Then he became serious again._

"_I killed him, Shelley. I killed the guy who did this to you and two of his friends." He said breaking down again._

"_Shhhhh, its ok Alex. You did it to help me and that is the best reason anyone can have to kill someone. To help another human. You are not a monster," she said reading his mind._

_Three weeks later, after Shelley was released and Alex had been through weeks of almost constant therapy, both of them were back in Blunt's office. He told them he would give them a month, at Alex's request, before they had to go to Brecon Beacons. He told them it was for safety reasons and that they would be training with K-Unit. _

_Shelley was happy. She couldn't wait to see the Unit again, especially Eagle. Eagle had helped her pull many, many pranks in the past year whenever the unit had unexpectedly shown up at Alex's house._

_And Alex was happy too, because even though he had failed to keep her safe, he knew the Unit wouldn't._

_

* * *

_

They walked into the mess hall to be greeted, as usual by the stares of their fellow SAS soldiers. Some of the stares were friendly, some curious, some awed, and some hostile. The unit ignored them all and walked over to an empty table putting down their trays.

Suddenly, they heard a round of catcalls. Some of the SAS recruits had taken a liking to Shelley and it was starting to get on their, especially Alex's nerves. He stood up and looked around, his eyes cold and his expression blank.

"Who was that?" he asked with a low, dangerous voice.

"Alex, leave it." Shelley said forcefully.

" Yeah, Alex _leave it_." Said a recruit named Otter.

"Actually Alex, let me help you." Shelley said her voice deceptively innocent.

Slowly the two teen spies walked towards the recruits. Two units came forward.

"Why don't you two go back to school? You don't deserve to be here. You probably have rich mommies and daddies waiting for you. You haven't worked to be here like all the rest of us," said one of the team leaders.

All of the veteran units started to whisper to each other. They all knew about the two spies. They were legends at the SAS but the recruits hadn't been told that yet. Here was a chance to have a bit of fun with them. The units started betting on who would win in the unavoidable fight. The soldiers who were reluctant in believing all the stories about the spies bet against them, after all it was eight on two and they were teenagers, while the majority bet that they would win.

"And what work have you done, hmm? Camping trips and shooting practice? Sounds like the American Boy Scouts to me," replied Shelley.

Suddenly one of the soldiers punched her. Immediately Alex had him on the ground and sat on his back twisting the offending arm into a painful position.

"Didn't mummy tell you never to hit a girl?" he hissed.

"What girl?" the man muttered. Hitting a particular pressure point, Alex knocked the man unconscious.

"Pathetic," he said. "Who's next then?"

All seven of the remaining men attacked. Alex easily deflected all of their blows, not bothering to throw any himself. Noticing this, the men became even more agitated and increasingly sloppy. But still all Alex did was block. Then seemingly out of nowhere, the men started to disappear one by one. The men, in their rage, didn't notice their team members dropping and out of ignorance didn't notice that the girl had gotten up and was a better fighter than they were, especially with her stealthiness. Soon, all the men were down and neither Alex nor Shelley had broken a sweat or lost their breath.

"Well. That was easier than even I expected." Alex told Shelley as the hall broke into excited chatters.

"Yup. These SAS men can be such buffoons. They always think that I'm just here to be protected by you. Idiots," she replied as they walked back to eat their breakfast.

The eight unconscious men weren't moved from their positions on the floor all through the meal.

**Soooooo….what do you think? Remember no flames please!**

**And all ideas are welcome! I still don't really know where I'm going with this story so help is appreciated!**

**~cj**


	3. Chapter 3:surprising the SAS

**I think my story is moving to slow. Leave a review if you agree. Or if you disagree. Or if you don't care. Or even if youre bored and wana say hi. I just wanna know if someone is reading this for sure. Anyway…**

**DISCLAIMER: Shelley is mine. So is the plot. But nothing else.**

**Moving on…**

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* * *

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The sergeant walked in and almost stepped on one of the men.

"What the hell?" he shouted. "Who did this to my men?" he asked, glaring at the two teens.

"They're pathetic. Maybe you should amp up their training," said Alex.

"Yea and teach em that it's not just male terrorists they'll be fighting. Women are always more ruthless. ." suggested Shelley.

"Are you telling me, that you don't _approve _of our training?" he said threateningly.

The two of them smiled and nodded.

"My office. NOW!" he shouted.

* * *

They followed the sergeant to his office.

"WHAT THE HELL? You could have put my men out of commission!" he said it angrily.

Alex and Shelley were worried. SAS was the only place they didn't have to keep up their "were normal" charade. It was relieving. They didn't want to move to an unfamiliar place again.

"But you're right." He said, surprising them. "Our training has been severely lacking lately. The Units have been slacking off and they lack respect. They act arrogant. They need to be taken down a peg. So, since you already demonstrated you're skills, how would you like to help us out with that?"

Soon Alex and Shelley rejoined their Unit, looking appropriately guilty.

* * *

The next morning, all the Units were woken up by the emergency alarm. Smoothly, each unit got into gear and formation. They crept around their quarters and looked for the threat. K-Unit, being of highest rank, lead them.

"K-Unit to All Units. Anybody have a visual?" Wolf asked through the walkie talkie.

"A-Unit to K-Unit. Negative."

"L-Unit to K-Unit. Negative."

"C-Unit to K-Unit. Negative."

"What about D-Unit and F-Unit?" asked Wolf.

"Lynx? Goat?"

"Mierda!" Wolf said in Spanish, his mother tongue. "Where were they stationed?"

"Around the mess hall and sergeant's office." Someone replied.

"All units to Mess hall. Proceed with caution."

The units gathered around the mess hall. But Wolf noticed something. L-Unit was missing.

"Shit!" he said, this time in English. How did they get three units without making any noise? Wolf started making a new plan.

"They're out here somewhere. We know that they are stationed around the mess hall. So here's what we do. All units enter the mess hall. Take stations around every window and door. We pick them off one by one. Move out."

The units entered the mess hall and took stations. Suddenly, Rattler, from A-Unit, heard a noise from inside the kitchen.

"I'll go check it out." He said. Slowly he entered the kitchen. On the floor, tied up and gagged, were the rest of the units.

"Holy –"he exclaimed. The rest of his Unit came into the kitchen, guns ready. Rattler ran outside and alerted the rest of the units. Suddenly, before anyone could make a move, all the lights came on. With loud bangs, bars started to close of all the exits, including the windows. A soft clicking sound was heard and suddenly every single unit at the SAS camp was unconscious.

* * *

Cat woke up to find himself and his Unit, all conscious now, locked in the Killing House. Suddenly the T.V. came on.

"Hello, you sorry excuses for SAS units," said a voice from beneath a mask. It was female and very familiar. The figure removed her mask.

"That was fun wasn't it Cub?" Shelley said.

"What the hell?" Wolf exclaimed. Shelley smiled. Apparently, Shelley could hear them.

Cub walked onto screen, put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. Every single unit was startled. None of them knew about the two being together like that, other than K-Unit, and even they were amazed by the normally shy boy's display of affection. Even Shelley looked slightly taken aback.

"Very." Cub said. "But I have to ask. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT SOLDIERS? THESE ARE THE AMATUERS WE SEND TO PROTECT OUR COUNTRY? IT TOOK US TEN MINUTES, _TEN MINUTES_, TO APREHEND SIX UNITS-THAT'S TWENTY-FOUR 'TRAINED' SOLDIERS!"

"Enough yelling Cub. You're gonna bust my eardrums." Shelley joked softly.

"Hi," Shelley started, confusing the soldiers even more than they were before. "My name is Shelley. I'm sixteen and I just helped my seventeen year old boyfriend take down six units of SAS."

"Starting in two minutes, all units will undergo a major training change. Say hi to your new teachers!" Shelley said cheerfully as she and Alex waved at the camera. "Now all of you are at an area of this training camp that you know really well. Killing House, mess hall, obstacle course, dojo etc. Your job is to complete the obvious tasks in front of you. But things are a little bit different. Nothing is as it seems. You'll see." The screen went blank.

"Stupid brats," muttered Wolf.

The screen came back to life.

"I heard that Wolf." Cub said with an evil smile.

* * *

Somewhere on camp, the other units laughed.

* * *

"Shit." Wolf said. Surprising his unit, his face paled.

Suddenly they heard gunfire behind them. Their two minutes were up.

* * *

"Let the training begin," Alex said, watching the different units through security cameras.

* * *

The next day the units woke up sore and reluctantly. They stood at attention as the morning alarm sounded.

They were all in shock from yesterday's events. They had been captured, _by teenagers. _Then those same teenagers had made them do everything they had ever learned, twice as fast and twice as vigilantly. The most amazing thing though, was that after everyone had gone through all the different things the teens had set up, the teens had done them all, easily beating all the best records.

They had a new respect for them. And they were completely embarrassed by how much they had underestimated Shelley ever since they found out that she had been the one to think up the entire training session.

The two teens now stood in front of the gathered units. The sergeant stood next to them. They whispered something to the man and then joined their unit.

"At ease soldiers," he said. "I hope you all learned some respect yesterday. Never underestimate the enemy. No matter how old they are or what they look like. And gender discrimination is illegal men!"

All the men shifted and looked down, refusing to make eye contact.

"You will continue your regular training today. Dismissed," he continued.

Everyone went back to their normal schedules. It was the first time Alex and Shelley would go through training with K-Unit together.

* * *

Alex was glad he and Shelley were paired up for everything. It made it easier to make sure nothing happened to her. _Again... _

The first thing they had to do that day was a 21 km jog through the woods. Alex and Shelley kept up easily with the unit, even pulling ahead at times.

Then they had to swim laps in the lake. After that they went through the obstacle course. Alex had improved greatly since his fist time doing the obstacle course. He could now do the entire obstacle course in less than fifteen minutes. Shelley wasn't much worse. She had some more training to go through before she could keep up though. The rest of the unit could run the obstacle course at about the same pace as them. Needless to say, they were the most physically fit Unit at the camp.

After that were language classes which Alex, who knew 13 languages didn't have to take. But where Shelley went, he went, so he helped out the teacher and the soldiers, keeping an eye on Shelley and everyone around her.

Then came shooting practice. Alex and Shelley had Scorpia training on their side so they had fun with it. Ignoring the other units in the shooting range, they let a little bit of their inner children loose. They bet on who could shoot the best from loads of unnatural positions. They shot from the hip, from the shoulders, while doing back flips or standing on their heads. Shelley even shot the gun with her arms tied behind her back. Alex couldn't top that. Reluctantly Alex handed over the twenty quid he had bet.

The other units went back to their own training, each thinking about the amazing teenagers they had come to respect.

* * *

K-Unit made their way over to the dojo for their last training exercise: combat practice with A-Unit and L-Unit. They walked into the large circular compound, taking their shoes off as they went in. they bowed to the sensei.

"When I point at you, you tell me what training you have in martial arts," he said.

He pointed at the members of A-Unit and L-Unit first. Each man had a blue or purple belt in karate and tae kwon do. K-Unit was last. He pointed first at Wolf.

"Sho (1st) dan black belt in karate. 3rd dan in tae kwon do. I have had training in street fighting a well."

Next was Snake.

"I have a sho (1st) dan in ju jitsu and in tae kwon do. Blue in karate."

Then Eagle.

"Sho (1st) dan in karate and green belt in tae kwon do."

Now Cat.

"Ni (2nd) dan in karate and ju jitsu. Experience with laido."

"Oh? You have experience with Japanese sword fighting?" asked the sensei, intrigued.

"My father taught me."

"Good, good…"

Then Alex. All the men looked at him, curiosity overtaking them.

"Schichi (7th) dan black belt in karate. Yon (4th) dan in tae kwon do. I have experience in using a katana and some types of Chinese swords. I have sho (1st) dan in ju jitsu. I have experience and training in street fighting as well."

The men stared, jaws dropped. Even the sensei looked impressed.

But the most surprising one to the men anyway, was Shelley.

"I am a Ju (10th) dan in karate, tae kwon do, ju jitsu, and kung fu. I have a hanshi samurai status in tae kwon do and karate. I can fight with a katana and with multiple blades and swords from around china, Korea, and Japan. I have experience and training with street fighting though not nearly as much as Alex."

What the hell? People who got hanshi status were often over 70 years old! How did this sixteen year old get it?

They were speechless and this time their jaws couldn't even drop; they were immobilized with shock.

They wondered how much experience Alex had with street fighting considering how much training Shelley obviously had.

"Amazing!" the sensei said. "You and Alex out rank me by quite a bit. I think you two can do your combat training on your own."

All the men sighed and let out a breath of relief.

* * *

**The different dans: (only used for some kinds of martial arts.)**

**Sho Dan**** or 1st Dan - at this rank no formal samurai title is awarded.**

**Ni Dan**** or 2nd Dan - at this rank no formal samurai title is awarded.**

**San Dan**** or 3rd Dan - at this rank no formal samurai title is awarded.**

**Yon Dan**** or 4th Dan - at this rank the formal samurai title of ****Renshi ****may be awarded.**

**Go Dan**** or 5th Dan - at this rank the formal samurai title of ****Renshi**** may be awarded.**

**Roku Dan**** or 6th Dan - at this rank the formal samurai title of ****Renshi**** may be awarded.**

**Schichi Dan**** or 7th Dan - at this rank the formal samurai title of ****Kyoshi**** may be awarded.**

**Hachi Dan**** or 8th Dan - at this rank the formal samurai title of ****Kyoshi**** may be awarded.**

**Ku Dan**** or 9th Dan - at this rank the formal samurai title of ****Hanshi**** may be awarded.**

**Ju Dan**** or 10th Dan - at this rank the formal samurai title of ****Hanshi ****may be awarded.**

**It is not uncommon for a Hanshi to be well over 70 or 80 years of age before this title is ever conferred upon them.**

* * *

**I know it says its only used for some martial arts but I couldn't figure out a better system to show just how much these teens knew.**

**I feel like this chapter isn't as good as it should have been. but I have no idea how to fix it! do you have any suggestions? Critiques? Is anyone reading this still? **

**I don't know.**

**But if you are, please please please review! I need to know if I should continue or not. Is this story moving too slow?**

**Urgh. Well, I hope I convinced someone. I decided that if I don't get at least one review for each chapter I write, then im probably doing something wrong, so I'll stop writing until I figure it out. **

**Which will be much faster if you review!**

**I'm done begging now. It sounds too unconfident. And as prone2dementia said, I should have more confidence in myself.**

**So until the next chapter! (Hopefully…)**

**~C.J.**


	4. Chapter 4: infirmary

**to my awesome reviewer: xlivilightx**

**i hope i did better at not making her a mary sue this time. and thanks so much for the review!**

**also thanks to thewingedcolonel for favoriting!**

**everytime someone reviews or favorites or alerts my story, i get fuzzy feelings! thank you so much!**

**i really need some help with this story guys! i love constructive criticism!**

**DISCLAIMER:**** I live in the land of the terminater: arnold scwarzeneggar. no seriously. hes the governor of california. and since anthony horowitz is a current citizen of britain, there is no way that HE is ME (who is also a SHE.)**

**yea, i have no idea what im thinking.**

**

* * *

**

All the men got to work. They sparred against people who were at about the same level as they were.

Alex and Shelley stayed away from them and tried not to distract them. Both of them were doing their best to try not to hurt the other too badly. Alex avoided hitting Shelley on her side, where she had been knifed four months before, and her stomach because of the gunshot wound. Shelley didn't actually know much about Alex's injuries from before she met him. So she avoided any places where anatomically it would hurt to be hit. Both tried their best to only use pressure points to incapacitate the other. Shelley looked at him, knowing that he wasn't trying his best.

* * *

_He usually is really competitive. He would lose himself in the movement. It's why he's a good fighter. What's wrong with him?_

Suddenly Shelley realized. _He's doing the same thing I am!_ Shelley burst out laughing.

* * *

Alex heard her peals of laughter. He looked up, confused.

"Why are you laughing?"

"Look at us: we're the best fighters here and we're fighting like wimps. If we were on a mission, we'd be dead."

Realizing she was right, Alex started laughing too.

"Okay. Then we'll fight for real now. We need to practice. Just, you know no dirty fighting." Shelley decided.

"Right. So no hits where we know it'll really hurt." Alex clarified.

The sensei walking over, heard the last part.

"Ok, you two. Ready? Spar."

The two started to fight, properly this time.

Alex knew that he had to actually hit her, but it felt wrong. He was supposed to look out for her, not hurt her! As a result he didn't fight much harder than he had before.

* * *

Shelley was frustrated with Alex. She wasn't made of glass! _I can take care of myself! Why won't he fight back? _ She thought angrily.

Shelley hadn't realized it but her anger was making her hit harder and increasingly faster. Alex easily blocked but he wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing. Suddenly, Shelley made it past his guard. The palm of her hand hit him hard, slightly off the center.

Shelley gasped as she watched Alex collapse. _What the hell?_

_

* * *

_

Alex felt the unbearable pain and he knew he was about to lose consciousness. He had no idea why though. _What the hell?_

_

* * *

_

The men stopped fighting to watch the fight. They saw Alex go down but they had no idea what was happening. _What the hell?_

_

* * *

_

Alex woke up in the infirmary. His thoughts were fuzzy. Slowly he processed the presence of multiple bodies near him. Slowly he tried to get up. As he sat up, he realized that Shelley was sleeping on his arm. K-Unit was also in the room. Wolf was asleep in a chair, head lolling back. Cat was asleep on a window seat.

_Wait, a window seat? _Alex thought. He looked around and realized that his room was really nice. _Wow, special treatment._

He sat up farther and tried to find Eagle and Snake. He saw Eagle asleep on the floor, using Wolf's foot as a pillow. Alex smiled, thinking of Wolf's reaction to that when he woke up.

Snake was asleep in a chair outside his room that Alex could see through the window.

He felt Shelley stir as he finished sitting up slowly. She turned her head and fell asleep again.

Alex realized that he had no idea what had happened. He thought back to combat practice. Suddenly he remembered the crippling pain he had felt when Shelley had hit him.

_Holy shit! _Alex looked down at his shirt. He pulled it up to look at his chest. The bullet scar he had from three years ago, the one over his heart, was bruised and ugly. Quietly he groaned.

Shelley looked up for a second but then, exhausted dropped her head back to the bed and fell asleep.

He pressed the call button near his bed.

"Yes?" came the voice of a female. _Probably the night shift nurse._

"Uhh…I'm guessing that I was supposed to press this when I woke up." Alex said uncertainly.

"Oh. Yes the doctor is on his way now."

"Thanks."

Two minutes later, the door opened and the lights turned on. The doctor walked in as the people around Alex started to wake up.

"Hey Cub. How you feeling?" the doctor asked as he checked Alex's vitals.

"I feel fine."

"Alex! You're awake! Oh my god Alex, I'm so sorry! I have no idea what happened! Why did you lose consciousness?" Shelley flung her arms around him and spoke in a rush, jumbling the words together as a result.

* * *

_did I really just say oh my god? i sound so much like his old hysterical female fan club! Oh well. I have an excuse for sounding like an idiot._

_

* * *

_

Alex stumbled backwards a bit.

_Did she really just say oh my god? She sounds so much like the girls from Brookland._

He smiled down at her.

"I'm fine Shelley. You just hit an old wound of mine."

Realizing there were other people in the room, Shelley quickly let go of him.

The rest of the unit woke up completely. Wolf woke up and, realizing something was on his foot, he kicked and scrambled out of his seat. Eagle glared and pouted at him while rubbing his head. Cat rubbed at his eyes. Snake was the only one still asleep, outside.

The doctor interrupted.

"Alex, you know it's not as simple as that."

"What are you talking about doctor?" asked Shelley.

Alex shot the doctor a glare. He shrinked back a little.

"I think I'm going to have to ask you all to leave the room while I talk to Cub." He said.

The Unit filed out of the room with confused expressions on their faces.

"Thanks doctor. Now I'm gonna have to answer questions that I really don't want to answer." _Especially Shelley. She's gonna be mad that I didn't tell her before. _Alex thought as he spoke to the doctor.

"Sorry. But that was the truth. It's not just any kind of wound. It's a gunshot wound that's only centimeters from your heart! And I'm afraid that the force of the hit you took, may have undone some of the procedures you underwent during the surgery you had after the sniper shot you.

"How do you know any of that? It's supposed to be classified information!" Alex hissed.

"I demanded your medical file from MI6. That is a very unusual wound to have survived, Alex."

"I know."

"So you wanna tell them now?"

"I'll have to tell them eventually."

"Then I'll go tell them they can come in now."

The doctor went and talked to the Unit. Everybody came back in.

Shelley spoke first, looking slightly annoyed.

"You wanna tell me what is going on now Alex? Cause for some reason the doctor wouldn't tell me."

Alex couldn't figure out how to start explaining things so instead he just showed them. Pulling up his shirt again, he explained what had happened.

"When I was fourteen and just started working for MI6, I went on a mission to infiltrate a terrorist organization called Scorpia."

"We already _know _that Alex."

"Let me finish. Well, after I finished the mission, Scorpia wanted revenge. They had a sniper shoot me as I walked out of the Royal & General Bank."

Shelley gasped as his wound was revealed.

"That was the appendicitis I had, Wolf." He said, explaining the excuse for his hospitalization to Wolf, who had sent him a get well soon card while he had been in the hospital.

"Anyway, the sniper didn't kill me like he was supposed to obviously. But he did hit me. About three centimeters above my heart. I got lucky. I was stepping off of the curb at the second he decided to shoot. It's the only reason I'm not dead."

"When Shelley hit me during practice, she hit the old wound and the pain made me collapse."

"Shit, Alex why didn't you tell me? We're supposed to be partners! You can't hide something like this from me! We're supposed to trust each other." Shelley said looking severely pissed off.

"Look Shelley, I didn't even remember that I'd been shot! I haven't thought about it for two years!" Alex explained.

"Alex, I could've really hurt you. I hit you pretty hard. I could have messed something up with your old surgery!" Shelley said looking really upset.

"That's what the doctor was saying. But listen Shelley, guys, I'm fine! Nothing went wrong and nothing is going to happen to me. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier Shelley but it's not a big deal!" he said.

"Yes it is!" Snake, who had finally woken up said. "Those types of wounds never stop hurting. Haven't you felt any pain at all on your missions?"

"Yeah but it always went away after a few minutes! I told you, it doesn't matter to me!"

"But it does matter to me Alex. What if something happened to you because of me?"

"But Shelley, I'm-"

Shelley had already left the room.

"-fine." he finished, shaking his head.

* * *

Shelley ran out of the room before the tears that had filled her eyes, overflowed.

* * *

"What the hell? What just happened?" Alex asked, dumbfounded.

"You're the super spy, this should be easy." Cat said his empathy showing. "How would you feel if you put her in the infirmary? You would feel guilty and you would feel like you had let her down. You wouldn't forgive yourself for it."

Alex stiffened and nodded.

"Well that's what she's feeling right now. She just put her partner, her best friend, into the infirmary. She feels like this is her fault. That coupled with the betrayal of you not telling her about the wound in the first place, is what caused her to break down just now."

"Shit. I have to go get her." Alex said, starting to get out of bed.

"No I think you should wait for her to come here. You're not supposed to get up anyway. Just wait an hour or so. We'll leave for now."

Alex, body stiff as he remembered what he had gone through when he had failed to protect her, just nodded and sat back down. He was too tired to be able to run fast enough to catch her anyway.

He watched as the unit left the room again.

* * *

Shelley made it back to K-Unit's dorm. She jumped on to the bed and started to sob.

_I could have hurt him! I did hurt him! But why didn't he tell me about the injury? i trusted him with my entire past and he can't even tell me about a damn injury? _she thought to herself. But then she remembered who she was talking about.

_Shelley, get a grip! You know that he didn't mean to! He was just to busy caring about other people, like you, to care about himself. You love him to bits, but he is an idiot sometimes._

Shelley thought wryly to herself. Then she looked at her watch.

_Damn! I can't believe its been more than an hour!_

_

* * *

_

Shelley had had enough of the tears. She made her way back to the infirmary.

* * *

Alex looked up as Shelley walked into the room. For the past hour and a half, he had been pacing around the room, trying to figure out how to make Shelley feel better.

When he saw her though, all his ideas went out the window. Her hair was all over the place. Her normally bright, mischievous eyes were dim. They were puffy and bloodshot. Her clothes were wrinkled and basically, she looked terrible. Alex, protective instincts taking over his mind, immediately tensed up and searched all of his heightened-above-average senses; looking for the person who had done this to the girl he loved. And then he remembered that it was _his _fault she looked like shit.

* * *

Shelley saw him tense up. He scanned the room slowly and she knew that he was looking for danger as he had done so many times before. She wondered why, but then caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror that in the bathroom that she could see through an open door.

_Bloody hell! I look like shit! No wonder the men just stared at me when I walked in._

She saw him figure something out and then his face became despaired. He deflated, looking guiltier than she ever remembered seeing him. Even guiltier than when she had been shot and he thought it was his fault for not protecting her. He looked like a little boy who had broken his mum's favorite vase after she had told him not to play ball in the house.

"What's wrong?" Shelley asked.

"Shelley, I'm frustrated." He said rubbing his face. She didn't say anything, knowing that he wasn't done talking yet.

"Shelley the only thing I have left is you." He continued, running his hands through his hair. Her heart started to beat faster at his words.

"And look at what I keep doing! I swore to myself I wouldn't let anything hurt you and look at this! Just look! I keep failing at it! And it's my fault, too! I'm so sorry Shelley. I can't seem to keep you safe!"

Shelley just stared him. What was he talking about?

"Alex that is utter bullshit," she said interrupting his self-berating.

He shut up and looked at her with pain in his eyes. It was worse than the pain she saw when he was talking about Jack leaving. _And, _she realized, _it was the pain he felt for failing himself in his quest to protect me._

"Alex," she said walking up to him. He looked away from her and wouldn't meet her eyes.

"ALEX!" she growled/shouted. She grabbed his face with both of her hands. "Alex, look at me."

He obliged. He saw the spark of determination in her eyes that had been missing a few seconds ago.

"Alex, we have been on over ten missions together. And I was always the one who couldn't help myself. I was the one who always did something stupid that ended with us being captured. And you always saved our asses, Alex. So you slipped and failed yourself twice. Every-"

"I didn't just fail myself Shelley. I failed _you. _I'm supposed to stop you from being hurt and you trusted me to protect you from that."

"No Alex, I didn't. I don't expect you to always be able to keep me completely safe. I trust you with everything I have. But I don't think even you could save me from everything that could possibly happen. You're human, Alex. Not a robot. Yu know that; you're always trying to prove it to Blunt. No one could possibly keep someone safe from everything. Fathers can't keep their children safe no matter how much they want to. And I'm not your child, Alex. I am able to keep myself safe too."

"I know-"

"And you've done more than anyone could ever ask for. If it wasn't for you, I would've been dead already."

"But-"

"But nothing Alex. You know that what I'm saying is true."

"Yeah, I know." Alex conceded.

"And Alex?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

"Why? You didn't do anything."

"I hurt you too. And I don't just mean hitting you. I mean this…" she said covering his eyelids with her finger tips.

* * *

"Huh?" he said, confused.

"The pain there. I'm the root of that." She said quietly to herself. But Alex heard.

"Now you're the one speaking utter bullshit."

"Sure, Alex. Sure." But the spark was back in her eyes.

He laughed, knowing that she was back to herself.

She felt his booming laugh, the one that always made her smile. She saw his hair flop over his eyes and his brown eyes crinkled at the edges. She wanted to kiss him. So as soon as his laughter died down, she did.

She caught him by surprise. In one fluid motion she flung her arms around him and brought his lips down to hers. Suddenly after a minute, he started to yawn.

"You should go to sleep Alex."

"Ok," he said smiling.

And he tossed her onto the bed. Climbing onto the bed next to her, he pulled her laughing figure close to himself and fell asleep with her in his arms.

**eh...doesn't feel like it was that great. i think i'm gonna try and make the next chapter less focused on just Alex and Shelly's relationship.  
and maybe i should start adding more of a plot to the story. what do you think? leave a review or PM me! **

**remember: i love constructive criticism! and i also love hearing ideas! if there's anything you might want to see happen, let me know! i still have no clear idea of what i want with this story.**

**anyway until next time!**

**~C.J.**


	5. Chapter 5: breakfast

**i'm baccckk! : D**

**and i once again have more confidence in myself. thanks marisje!**

**anyway i just need to tell you: i dont know how to make applesauce. yea i know, random, but you'll get it.**

**anyway please review! oh and is there a way to see if anyone has read a chapter or something? like a number somewhere? please tell me if you know! it would be a big boost to my confidence if i could see that at least a person or two was reading all these chapters!**

**DISCLAIMER: *squeezes eyes shut really tightly and concentrates really hard...***

**did it work? did i finally figure out how to turn into a middle aged british man named Anthony Horowitz?**

**mierda. nope. didnt work. great. now i have to try again.**

***repeats whole process.***

The Unit left the room shortly after Shelley had. Snake was furious.

"He said he got that three years ago! He was only _fourteen_! He got shot, almost in his heart, when he was fourteen! And he didn't think it was necessary to tell _any _of us? What are we, cardboard? This could have been a major issue during any of the missions we had with him!"

"Snake, _shut up_ for a second!" Wolf finally broke in. "yea, he didn't tell us before but we know now. There's nothing we can do! Stop obsessing!"

"I know." Snake sighed. "It's just…he reminds me of Scotty."

Wolf started to feel a little guilty. Scotty was Snake's younger brother, who had died a year before in Iraq.

"It's fine Snake. Just…he's a teenager in an adult's world. He grew up fast. And after having been through what he has, the fact that he's alive makes it obvious that he can take care of himself."

"Yea. Okay. I'll stop obsessing."

"Good. I think someone should stay here tonight just in case something happens to Cub."\

* * *

Eagle watched the two spies talking as Snake and Wolf discussed something. He remembered the first time he had seen Alex, when he was fourteen. Immediately he had known that his unit was wrong about him. He knew that the kid wasn't what he looked like; he never complained about anything! Even the best soldier complained about something. He looked like someone who would take what he got and do what he needed to move on with his life. He looked like the type who would live wholeheartedly to the life lesson: when life gives you lemons, lick them, pucker your lips, and move on.

He thought about the difference between that boy and the man who had come back the week before. The man he had met a week ago was cold. He was hardened. He had been through multiple levels of hell and he had survived all the hurdles life had thrown at him; hurdles no normal teenager would have been able to live through. He had been closed off and secretive. Every six minutes, like clockwork, he would scan the area around him, looking and listening hard with his heightened senses, for any sign of danger. His voice held no hint of emotion. And if anyone got too near him he would stiffen and ready himself for a fight. The only time that person would lose his mask was when an even more mysterious girl was near him. Shelley was that girl and in the past week, she had worked with the unit to loosen Alex up a bit.

"He's been like this ever since Joseph showed up!" she had said, frustrated. Confused, Eagle had asked who Joe was. His unit had just looked at him and groaned.

Now, the boy was more normal. He made jokes and laughed a lot more often.

_Especially when he's around her, _Eagle thought, watching Alex and Shelley laughing together.

Eagle looked away for a minute as Wolf addressed him

"Eagle, you'll take the first shift, cause I doubt you'll accept being woken up in the middle of the night to change shifts."

"Huh?"

"You'll take the first shift outside the room to make sure nothing happens."

He turned back and smiled as he saw Alex throw Shelley onto the bed.

"Maybe one of us should stay with Shelley in her room too," he heard Cat suggest to the unit. Being the only girl on camp, she had been given a separate room that was annexed to the main dorm of K-Unit.

"I don't think that will be necessary," Eagle interrupted and pointed out the teens, who had fallen asleep in each other's arms.

"Ahh, young love. So sweet." Wolf said. Eagle looked at him, surprised. "I can't wait to wake them up in the morning." Wolf continued a mischievous smile on his face.

_Ohh…maybe I should warn them. _Eagle thought.

Then he smiled. _No, it'll be much funnier to watch Wolf get his ass kicked when he tries his tricks with these two._

Eagle watched the men leave and snickered. Then he sat down and got settled in for his shift.

* * *

Alex woke up. He didn't know why until he realized that there was someone in the room. All of a sudden he felt freezing cold water being thrown on him and Shelley.

"I see you're up, lovebirds."

That was all the intruder, who Alex and Shelley had realized was Wolf by the sound of his voice, had time to say. Suddenly, he was on the floor after being knocked off of his feet by Shelley. He realized Alex was sitting on top of him, smiling in a way that immediately made Wolf suspicious. It was too innocent.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"Me? I'm not going to do anything. Shelley on the other hand…"

Alex trailed off as the person in question walked into the room.

"I'm gonna make you sorry you ever decided to try that on us." She said holding up her bag of toiletries and smiling evilly.

Wolf was suddenly really scared. He whimpered.

"Mierda…"

* * *

The rest of the unit walked into the room an hour later to see what had happened to Wolf. They all cracked up, laughing. Eagle laughed so hard, he was crying and couldn't catch his breath. Cat was rolling on the floor. Snake was using the doorframe for support.

Wolf was sitting, strapped to a chair with one of Alex's belts. He was wearing a pink dress that looked like something a six year old would wear if she was the size of a grown, buff man. It had lace and bows all over it. He was wearing blue eye shadow, bright pink blush, and rose red lipstick. His nails were painted hot pink and his normally dark brown hair was dyed blond with pink streaks. And he looked absolutely furious as Alex stood back and took a picture of Shelley's expert handy work.

"You know… if you ever…get tired of being a spy…, you could… open a salon Shelley!" Snake gasped out.

"Yea…and where…did…you get…that dress? It looks…like…something my niece…would wear! And it's…definitely not something…you would even go near…usually." Eagle asked, looking up from his position on the floor.

"Thanks, Snake. I got the dress from a thrift store before I got here. I was gonna give it to the sergeant right before we left as payback for calling me 'sweetie' when I talked to him last. After I repeatedly told him that my name is Shelley and I would flay anyone who called me by sweetie."

The unit just looked at her disbelievingly.

"It's true. He did make the stupid mistake of calling her sweetie. And she did tell him she would flay him after she got tired of him calling her that. The last time I called her sweetie was when she decided to act like my annoying bratty classmates for an entire week. She went truly apeshit. It was _scary."_ Alex said laughing. He sounded happier than he had the entire week. He also seemed more rested.

"No nightmares Alex?" Snake asked, completely ignoring the fact that the team leader was still tied to a chair.

"No actually." Alex said looking slightly amazed. "Shelley you are awesome! I love you!" he said, throwing his arms around her from the side.

Everyone, even Shelley, was kind of shocked to hear him say the words so casually and publically but Alex didn't seem to have even noticed he'd said them.

"You're the reason I didn't have nightmares! You were with me the entire night! Thank you!" he said kissing her on the cheek and then letting go.

"I'm hungry. Let's go to the mess." He ran out of the room.

Everyone just stared after him.

"Did he hit his head on the way down? How hard did you hit him, Shelley?" Wolf asked, still tied to the chair.

"I have no idea." Shelley answered; hand on her cheek, where Alex had kissed her. "But I'm kinda glad I did. He's much more…relaxed now. I like it."

"Personally, I think he might just be schizo." Cat said, still dazed.

"Whatever," said Eagle, who wasn't really shocked? He had the kid pegged better than anyone, including himself, had thought.

"I'm hungry too. Let's go."

"Wait! Get me out of this stuff!" Wolf shouted desperately. "What if Eva sees me?"

"Who's Eva?" Shelley asked, looking at Snake conspiratorially.

"Wolf's not so secret crush. She's one of the nurses here. Actually her shift should be starting-"

A pretty brown haired woman walked in.

"Oh my- What the hell?" she said and then burst into laughter. She walked out of the room without another word, still laughing.

"Eva?" Shelley asked looking at Wolf's tomato red face.

"Eva." Snake answered.

She laughed softly.

"Okay. Time to get Wolf out of the torture chair. Alex already has the pictures. You never know when they could come in handy."

"Just get me out of the damn chair." Wolf growled.

"Aw, no need to get feisty Wolfy dahling. You look GOHGEOUS!" Cat said with a preppy accent.

Wolf lunged at him, chair and all.

* * *

The rest of the unit walked into the mess hall about ten minutes after Alex.

"Where did he go?" Eagle wondered.

"Where did everybody go?" Wolf said looking almost completely normal, other than his hair, which, he had been dismayed to learn, wouldn't fade from its blond-and-pink state for at least a month.

Snake replied.

"Well we were all so much in a hurry to see what would happen when you pranked them, at five a.m. might I add, that we got up before all the other units. Breakfast isn't supposed to be served for another half hour."

"Shit."

"Well I'll go find Alex then. I think I might have a couple ideas of where he might have gone." Shelley said. The rest of the unit nodded absentmindedly. She got up and left the table.

* * *

Shelley walked into the kitchen. She smelled something weird. It smelled like…it smelled like…_food?_

_But the chef's cooking __never__ smells like food!_ Shelley thought.

She walked farther into the kitchen.

There, lecturing the cook as he made breakfast was Alex! He had already made bacon, eggs and French toast by the looks of it. He had made enough to feed the entire camp of twenty four hungry men who hadn't had real food for a couple months.

"Shelley! I should've known you would figure it out. Damn. Well get back out there and don't tell anyone what's happening, ok? I want it to be a surprise."

"Don't worry Alex. I won't tell. Now what are you making?"

"Come over here and see."

"Ok…" she said, making her way over to where Alex was standing.

It looked like he was making…

_Applesauce? That's my favorite! How many surprises am I going to have today?_

"I thought, if I'm going to make breakfast anyway, why not make something special? So I made applesauce. Cause it's your favorite." He said sweetly.

"But that takes forever to make! And it's a lot of work!" she said, looking at him with wonder and love on her face.

"Whatever." He said shyly, looking down at the pot he was stirring.

_I missed that…_Shelley thought as she looked at the slight blush that appeared on his cheeks.

"It's worth it."

"Thank you," she whispered going on her tiptoes to reach his ear. Then _she _kissed _him _on the cheek in the exact spot he had kissed her earlier. She turned on her heel and walked away.

Alex stared after her.

* * *

Cat watched as Shelley walked back to the table, smiling.

"So? Where is he?" he asked.

"You'll see," she replied.

* * *

A half hour later, the first group of SAS men other than K-Unit, walked into the Mess hall. They got their trays of food and did double takes. On their trays was actual, honest-to-goodness, FOOD!

K-Unit, scrambling after Shelley, who had gotten up right after the other men had arrived, looked at the passing men and their FOOD with amazement. All of them sped up and got their plates.

They brought them back to the table and devoured it as the rest of the camp arrived and got their breakfasts. It was the quietest meal time in the history of the military training base.

The sergeant walked in and saw the food.

_What the hell?_

"Who cooked the breakfast today?" he asked the server, his booming voice echoing through the now silent hall.

"That would be me." Alex said walking into the dining area.

The soldiers' jaws dropped. _Was there anything this kid couldn't do?_

"I got tired of eating the slop you call food. So I decided to teach the staff some new tricks."

The sergeant just shook his head and got himself the biggest tray he could find as the cafeteria broke into cries of amazement, agreement and laughter.


	6. Chapter 6:big boom

**sooo sorry this is so late! i had no free time to write this week thanks to my father. grr...**

**thanks to:**

**HarbringerLady and**

**Shiitake Mushrooms In A Jar**

**for adding my story to alerts!**

**DISCLAIMER: disclaimed. nuff said.**

**

* * *

**

The next few weeks went by normally. No one mentioned the three words Alex had said so casually, for the first time, to Shelley in the infirmary and he was glad. He didn't want to let the soldiers see him blush.

But on their third week there, Alex and Shelley were called into the sergeant's office.

"Whatever it was, I didn't do it." Shelley had said as soon as she walked into the office.

She saw who was inside and froze, grin dying on her lips.

Alex saw Shelley freeze and wondered what was happening. He looked over her shoulder.

"What do you want?" he said coldly as he stared at Blunt and his deputy, Mrs. Jones.

"The new era of Scorpia has put a price on your heads. As well as most of the other criminal organizations that you have ever worked against. That includes the Chinese Triads and the Italian Mafia as well as individual criminals. Your safety is almost nonexistent and everywhere you go is now on red alert for attacks."

"So what are you gonna do about it? If you're gonna do anything that is."

Mrs. Jones looked insulted.

_She could have fooled me, if I didn't already know that MI6 didn't give two shits about me._

"Of course we are! You're our best agents! We can't have you in danger! We have agents stationed-"

Before she could finish, a loud explosion was heard and the walls and ceilings collapsed around them. Alex tackled Shelley and kept his body on top of her to keep her safe from flying debris as soon as he heard the explosion. He looked up as the dust cleared and noticed that no one was hurt, though everyone was unconscious besides him and Shelley. As he stood up, he realized that they were surrounded.

_Shit._

_

* * *

_

The units heard a loud explosion rock through the camp. They ran outside and noticed a column of smoke rising up from the office building. K-unit started to run towards where they knew Alex and Shelley were. But the voice of a unit leader stopped them.

"K-unit if we go in now, we could very well be walking into a trap. We need to plan this out."

Wolf heard the voice of reason and told his men to back off. They went back down and plotted with the other units.

"We'll case the area surrounding where the office building was. We have to find out four things: our enemy's numbers, the number of hostages they've taken, and the casualties of both sides."

"Ready men? Let's move!"

* * *

"Hello Alex. My name is Jonathon Ambrose. I am the new director of the New Era," said a man dressed in a blinding white metallic body suit.

"Nice to meet you Johnny." Alex said, keeping up the charade of civility. Abruptly his voice turned to ice.

"Now it would be even nicer to see you leave. But you're not going until you get what you want now are you. So why don't you tell me what that is so that we can get to the part where I beat the shit out of you and your…err…minions," he said.

Jonathon made an invisible gesture and suddenly Alex felt to buff hand grab his biceps. He felt two more men go towards Shelley, pick her up from where she was watching and drag her over to Alex.

"Manners, Alex. And I'm not one of those many idiots you killed. I'm not gonna tell you all my plans just so that you can destroy them. No, I'm just gonna take what I need and go." So saying, he once again made an invisible gesture and the men started to drag Shelley towards the middle of the compound, where Alex noticed, there was a helicopter waiting.

"Make a move and I shoot her," he said to Alex.

"Make a move and I shoot _him_," he continued, saying almost the exact same thing to Shelley.

Alex stood and watched as the thugs let go of him. They turned their backs and almost immediately, Alex knocked them out without a sound.

He watched the remaining 8 men make a single file line behind Jonathon. He met Shelley's eyes and made a plan. He mimed himself knocking out the only guy that was behind Shelley and her two guards and her knocking out the guards. Then he put his hands to his lips, signaling that they should be as quiet as possible.

Shelley nodded at Alex, disguising the move as a sneeze.

* * *

_Damn these men have a hard grip! I'm starting to lose feeling in my arms! _Shelley thought.

Suddenly she felt, rather than saw Alex spring into action. Immediately, she twisted out of the thugs' grip and knocked one of them out, while Alex, having already knocked out his first man, helped knock out the other thug.

Alex pulled out his gun and Shelley did the same. Both of them used the weapons to knock out all the men. Just as he was about to board the chopper, Jonathon turned around.

Shocked, he looked at his fallen men. Suddenly, a gun hit him on the temple and he was knocked unconscious.

"Is it just me or do these 'villians' get more and more pathetic every time we see them?" Alex asked.

Alex and Shelley looked at the fallen body of the Scorpia director.

"Mommy?" they heard Jonathon say before Alex knocked him unconscious again.

"Nope it's definitely not just you, Alex." Shelley said, staring at Jonathon, with disbelief.

Shelley looked up and noticed that there were soldiers running toward them up the hill.

"Hey, the others are coming. We should probably start looking over the unconscious adults in there."

"Yeah," Alex said, looking up. "That would probably be a good idea." He sighed and walked over to the rubble and the unconscious bodies. He leaned down and checked their vitals.

* * *

The units arrived at the scene to see Alex and Shelley had already apprehended all the attackers. They decided to find what information they could off of the bodies and the helicopter. Snake saw Alex tending to the sergeant and the MI6 visitors and ran up to help, hoping that none of them, including Alex were gravely injured.

Shelley watched Alex walk over to the unconscious people. She looked up and saw Wolf walking towards her.

"What happened?"  
She quickly explained the situation and started to help the units look for information, knowing that sometimes, information is the best weapon against your enemies.

Snake ran up to Alex, face pale.

"Are they dead?"

"No just unconscious. All of them took some heavy blows to the head."

"Shit. Okay we're flying them all to St. Dominic's in London. I think you should go with them just in case, Alex."

"Okay Snake. But I have one favor to ask you."

"Yeah?"

"Don't tell Shelley until after I leave. And try to stop her from following me. I know her; she won't stay here even if it's safer. And Scorpia will be after us, especially since we just captured they're director again. I need K-Unit to keep her safe."

"Promise, Cub. Although the keeping her from following you part of that will be reallllly hard." Wolf said walking up, having obviously heard the conversation.

"And another thing Cub. We found some papers in the helicopter. Turns out that you didn't capture the director. This guy is the director's son."

"Great. Now we have an angry father who just happens to be the director of a terrorist organization after us." Alex said in a fake cheerful voice.

"This will be so much fun."

* * *

Alex was in a helicopter next to the three unconscious bodies. They were three thousand feet off the ground. Suddenly he heard a loud thunk from outside the helicopter. It sounded like something hitting the underbelly. He walked over to the entrance and looked down. Suddenly, a fist came at him at lightning speed and hit him in the nose. Alex fell to the ground, dazed. The person flipped off of the helicopter's landing bars and into the body.

"Seriously Alex? Again?" Shelley asked.

"How did you even get here?" Alex asked looking up at her disoriented.

"That is not important right now. I told you Alex. We're partners. We keep EACH OTHER safe. You are NOT going to do all the work on your own. I'm a spy too! You're not my Daddy so stop treating me like a little girl! I can keep myself safe and I don't need you to assign me bloody BODYGUARDS!" Shelley said angrily voice getting louder with each word.

"FOR GODS SAKE ALEX STOP MAKING THESE DECISIONS FOR ME! IF I WANT TO GO TO ST. DOMINIC'S WITH YOU THEN I WILL! SURE AT CAMP IM SAFE BUT I NEED YOU SAFE WITH ME! YOU CANT JUST RUN OFF LIKE THAT-"

"I was hardly running off. And don't shout so much, you are louder than I was in that video we made for the units' training," Alex muttered interrupting.

Shelley continued as if he hadn't spoken. The only indication that she had heard him speak was the lowering of her voice to normal decibels again.

"-and I can't have anything happen to you any more than you can have them happen to me."

Alex looked at her guiltily.

"Shelley, I'm sorry. But this was my fail safe plan for keeping you safe. I should've known you would have found a way to follow me though. K-unit is a group of imbeciles." He said muttering that last sentence to himself.

"They are not imbeciles Alex. Don't be rude."

"Sorry, sorry! But seriously, how the hell did you get onto a helicopter that is currently three thousand feet in the air!"

"Simple. Stole Blunt's ride. It's obviously been modified by Smithers as it was remarkably fast. I pushed the speedometer to over 200! Anyway, you were flying over the highway and I still have a couple gadgets with me from previous missions. I used the belt grappling hook with a four thousand feet reach and shot the underside of the helicopter. Then I waited a couple seconds for you to come check put the noise, as I knew you would and clocked your nose the way you deserved."

"Which bloody _hurt_ Shell. Seriously I think you sprained my nose."

"You deserved it for acting like an 'imbecile'," she replied, crossing her arms.

Alex could hear the air quotes as she said it. He walked over to her small, glaring, tense body and wrapped his arm around her. He felt the stiffness leave her body.

"I love you. And I'm sorry for acting like an 'imbecile'," he whispered in her ear. She shivered at his words but didn't say anything.

* * *

Shelley loved the way Alex's strong lean arms wrapped around her. They circled her waist so softly. And the way he whispered those words made tingles go down her spine, causing her to shiver involuntarily. Her head fit perfectly on his chest. He was a head taller than her.

Suddenly, Shelley felt him leave. She looked up just in time to see a flitting glimpse of sadness and pain on his face before it was replaced by a guarded smile that didn't convince her one bit. She sat down in the seat next to him.

"What happened Alex?"

"Nothing. Just thinking," he couldn't keep from adding. It wasn't nothing and he couldn't completely lie to her. It felt wrong.

"It's not nothing Alex. I know when something is really bothering you but I can't help you if you don't tell me what it is."

Suddenly Alex couldn't take it.

He whispered. "You never say it back. I feel like you do sometimes but then I look at you. Why would someone like you feel like that about me? I'm just a whole lot of trouble and I annoy the hell out of you. You…you're…you're just…perfect. You can't feel like that about an idiot like me." He said the whole thing in a whispered voice looking anywhere but in her eyes. That is until he said that last sentence. And he was shocked to see that she had a look on her face he had never seen before. It was a look mixed with shock, incredulousness, anger and pain. But suddenly amusement took over.

"Aleeeeeex…" she stretched the second syllable of his name. "Are you feeling insecure?" she asked him teasingly. She was trying to get a rise out of him, but it didn't work. Alex just looked at her.

"Alex you really are a dolt! You have got to be kidding me! You really don't know that I love you?" Shelley said incredulously.

Alex looked down and blushed. He looked like such a cute little boy that Shelley couldn't resist. She got up, plopped down in Alex's lap, where his arms automatically wrapped around her waist, and hugged him around the shoulders, giving him a kiss on his head. She put her head on his shoulder and turned her head inwards. She kissed him on the neck and she felt him shiver just like she had.

"I love you too." She said chuckling.

He put his head on hers and she felt him smile.

"That sounds really nice." He said.

"Fine, I'll say it again: I love you."

He picked his head up, turned her head so it was facing him and kissed her hard on the lips. Then his lips became gentler and the kiss, tender. She sighed against his lips. Alex leaned back, pulling her with him. She yawned and Alex kissed her forehead.

"You're tired, love. Go to sleep."

"You are gonna have numb legs if I fall asleep on your lap. Let me just-"she said, starting to get up.

Alex tightened his grip on her.

"No. you stay here."

"But-"he covered her mouth with his hand.

"Stay here. Sleep." He commanded. She licked his hand.

"Sheeell! That's so immature. Just go to sleep already! Please?'

She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Fine." She said leaning against him. "But if your legs go numb, don't wake me up or I'll punch you in the face again."

"Deal," he said.

"Love you Alex" she whispered voice slurred with sleep.

"Love you too Shell." He answered. But she had already fallen asleep.

* * *

**sooo? how was it? please review i want to know!**

**~C.J.**


	7. Chapter 7: new house

**i'm baaaack! and

* * *

thanks to aclamon95 for the story alert! it made me happy! and i know that i hate begging but review? please?**

**DISCLAIMER: disclaimed.**

**

* * *

**

They arrived on the landing pad with a jolt. Shelley's eyes shot open. She looked up at Alex and saw his eyes on her face. He slowly got up, with her in his arms.

"Alex?" she asked drowsily.

He turned around and put her down in the seat he had just vacated.

"I'll be right back Shell. Just gotta make sure everything is alright."

"No wait…let me…co…" Shelley tried to say but she kept yawning and fell asleep before she could finish the sentence.

Alex shook his head and laughed.

He got off the helicopter and helped with getting the sergeant and heads of MI6 get checked in to the hospital.

* * *

Shelley woke up because of the brightness behind her eyelids.

_Stupid sun. Ugh. Oh well. Time to figure out where the hell I am._

She opened her eyes slowly, letting them adjust to the light. She looked around. She was in a queen sized bed that was raised so high off the floor, all 5'4 inches of her barely reached the floor. The walls were peach with white frames. On both sides of the bed, were small tables. To the left of the bed were a bathroom and a dressing area with a sink in front of the door. A door, probably leading to another room outside, was next to that. Directly across from the bed was an average sized TV. There was a large window to the right of the bed.

She sat up and realized that there was a closet next to the TV. She went to it and threw open the door. Inside were clothes for every possible scenario, all in her size. She walked in and suddenly a computer screen slid out from behind a rack of clothes. She looked down and realized she'd stepped on some kind of sensor pad. She looked at the screen and realized that the sensor had measured her exact size and weight and various other details that identified her as Shelley Mason. The computer asked her to put her finger on a smaller sensor pad that was attached to the screen. She complied and felt a sharp prick on her thumb.

"Ow…" she whispered.

The entire wardrobe suddenly transformed. Racks of clothes flipped to show rows and rows of gadgets hung on walls and in individual cases. There was a bank of computers that had the logo of MI6 on the screen. A huge safe was located to the right of it.

"Holy baby Jesus." She gasped. She was standing in a secret lab.

_Seriously! This is sooo cool! And completely out of the movies. But whatever. Finally one of the cool things about being a spy. I can't wait to show Alex. Wait, where is he?_

With that thought she ran out of the lab/closet, spy senses taking note of how, the second she passed the floor sensor, everything looked like an ordinary closet again.

She ran out of the door she had seen earlier and found herself in a huge living room. It was beige and white. There was a large flat screen TV standing on top of a cabinet. The glass doors of the cabinet allowed a view of all the game consoles and DVD players Shelley had ever heard of. There were beige couches too. One was an L shaped couch while the other was a two person couch creating three sides of a rectangle. There was a love seat too, in a surprisingly bright shade of red.

_Ok this has gotta be the most awesome place I've ever seen._

She walked farther, down into a hallway. She entered a huge kitchen. It had a large island in the middle with granite counter tops and silver stainless steel appliances everywhere else. This room was darker brown and had a huge bay window that showed that the house rested on a Cliffside overlooking some stairs that led to the ocean. There was a door to a garden and looking through the stained glass on the door, Shelley could see a small path that led to a big pool and Jacuzzi.

She turned around and saw a doorway that led to another hallway. This hallway had a staircase that went up to the right of her and a staircase that went down to the left. A quick look down the left staircase revealed a garage that held Alex's silver Mitsubishi Eclipse and a black Ferrari with a set of keys in the door lock. She noticed a note hung from the keychain.

_Agent Shelley Mason_

_This is your new car. And the keys to the house and basically everything else that MI6 has given you. I hope you can enjoy it m'girl! _

_Smithers_

_**Finally! My own car!**_

Shelley grabbed the keys and went back upstairs. She went up the right staircase and found herself in a large office space. There were no walls; instead there were large windows all around the room which was shaped like a round tower. The ceiling was high and there was a small door across from her. She entered and found herself in small greenery with, she noticed, automatic sprinklers. She went back into the office space and noticed a large desk with more computers and a chair made of supple black leather. She found another desk just like it on the other side of the room.

_Good. I was starting to think they'd separated me and Alex. But where the hell is his room?_

She made her way back down the staircase. She walked through the kitchen and into the living room. Finally she noticed that right next to her room was another door.

_How did I miss __**that?**_

She knocked lightly and opened the door to find the room empty. She noticed a piece of paper lying on the bed though.

_Hey Shell. I couldn't sleep. I'm going down to the beach for a walk. Come meet me there. I'll make breakfast for us later. _

_Love, Alex._

_**What is it with spies and notes? What If the wrong person finds them? They can be so stupid sometimes. Oh well.**_

Shelley changed and went out the kitchen door. To the right, there was a path to the pool, surrounded by flowers. To the left was an iron gate that led to a staircase that went down to the beach. Shelley ran down to the beach and looked around for Alex. She saw his light brown hair flying around in the slight breeze. He was sitting right on the edge of the water, small waves splashing over his toes. She ran up to him and wrapped her arms around him from the back.

"Morning." She whispered.

"Hey Shell." He said. She noticed how his voice was choked and realized that he was upset.

"What happened now? Well other than we have a totally awesome new house."

"Well it's kinda about that. Shelley, Scorpia destroyed my uncle's house. A bomb."

"God. I'm sorry Alex. I know how much that house meant to you." And she did. That house was Alex's only reminder of how he used to be. Before MI6 ruined his life. It was Alex's reminder that he was human. And now it was gone.

* * *

Saying the words made the whole situation all too real for Alex. He didn't want to believe that his childhood home was really gone.

"Shelley can you do something for me?"

"Of course. Just say the word."

"Come with me to Tom's? I want to see him. I need to forget this for a couple hours."

"That's it? Sure. I always like Tom. But there is one condition."

"What's that?"

"We're taking my car."

Alex grinned.

"Deal."

* * *

They drove over to tom's house in London. After his parents had finally divorced a year ago, Tom got an internship with a large technology company. Although he had little patience for studies, most people didn't realize that Tom was quite good with technology. Anyway, he met a stroke of luck. The manager of the London branch of the company had retired and the headquarters loved Tom. He became the new manager and in less than a month made more money than both of his parents had ever made in a year combined. He legally emancipated from his parents and bought a large penthouse in the middle of bustling London. Even after all these years he still remained Alex's best friend and confident other than Shelley. Tom really liked Shelley. He noticed that she made Alex happy and that was good enough for Tom. It had been a long time since he had seen that sparkle in his friend's eyes and it made him joyful to see it again. So when the spy couple knocked on his door, seconds before he was supposed to leave for work, Tom cancelled all of his appointments for the day and ushered them inside.

"Shelley! You look awesome. Alex…you really don't. What's up with that?"

"Tom my uncle's house was bombed."

"Shit man. That sucks."

"Yea. But I guess it's time to move on. I can't keep trying to remember the days before all this. They're never gonna come back."

"Yea. I think that's probably a good idea. You want anything to drink?" Tom changed the subject without realizing it.

"Yea. I want a black coffee. No milk but lots of sugar. And no decaf please. I didn't get much sleep last night." Alex replied.

Shelley looked over at him. "Nightmare?"

"Yea. And I couldn't sleep after. I'm running on about two hours of sleep in the last forty eight hours."

"You should've woken me up! I could've helped."

"I didn't want to deprive you of sleep too. One of us should be fully alert at all times."

"I want a coke. And Alex, you're sleeping in my room tonight."

Tom choked on the croissant he had been eating as he'd watched his two favorite people argue. Shelley and Alex were not religious. Who could be after all they'd seen in this evil world? But both of them were big on celibacy. Neither wanted the complications of pregnancy along with all the troubles they already had.

"Wha- you …Huh?" he sputtered while reaching for the glass of milk Shelley was holding out to him.

"Get your mind out of the gutter Harris. Just sleeping. It helps keep his nightmares away." Shelley said.

"Oh." Tom said. He really did get their worries but it was still weird. Alex the lucky bastard got to live with one of the hottest girls he'd ever seen and it seemed like a waste.

Alex cuffed Tom on the back of his head.

"OW! That hurt Alex! Bloody spies." He muttered.

"Go lust after your own girlfriend." Alex smirked. They were so close it was almost as if they could read each other's minds.

Tom huffed.

"I can't believe they hired you. Seriously, you're such a little baby sometimes," Shelley said pinching Tom's cheeks, while Alex laughed.

Tom blushed.

"Whatever."

The three friends goofed around for another hour before Tom announced that he had had enough of their constant teasing. And that he had a meeting that he forgot he had to go to. Actually that was a date not a meeting but-

"You're going on a date, aren't you?" Alex stated.

"Well…yea." Tom said sheepishly.

Alex laughed again.

"Alright then mate. I'll see you later." He said following Shelley to the door.

"Bye Tommy!" Shelley called over her shoulder. "Be a good boy!"

Tom shut the door as Alex's laughter filled the air. He shook his head at his friends' antics and went to get ready for his date.

* * *

Alex and Shelley sat in the car, Shelley in the driver's seat.

"Thanks Shell," Alex said as she started the engine.

"No prob. I had fun," she answered.

"Yea so did I. but unfortunately, I just got a text from the unit. They're over at St. Dominic's. Apparently Blunt has requested our presence in ten minutes. I don't see how we're gonna make it though. The hospital is twenty minutes from here and we're in London. The traffic will be a killer."

"Alex who are you talking to? We're both trained in evasive maneuvers and this baby can reach 220 mph. we'll get there."

Alex grinned.

"Floor it."

* * *

** i think its starting to become a little more original now... idk for sure though. whatever its still fun to write when i have time. but its been lots of work to find time for this recently and i like to know all that is not for nothing. so please review! and for people who love Tom like me...YAY the goofball is back! right now hes a little OC and im not used to his POV yet so its not that great. constructive criticism please! oh and i finally figured out how to see the number of hits i get and that is so awesome! so for all the people who i saw are actually reading this, thank you! and if you have the time please press that pretty blue lettered link!**

**:D**

**~C.J.**


	8. Chapter 8: MISSING

**o my god im sooo happy! i got so many email alerts! now if only the people who added me on alert and fave reviewed too...**

**o well.**

**but seriously ive seen people with shorter stories get way more reviews. and that pitiful blue number up there is sort of depressing.**

**anyway thanks to:**

** FaithInEveryone**** all the stars are cuz he/she (Sorry i dont know!) gave me 3 reviews and put me on story alert thank you!**

** ohhmyyjasperr**

**doctorwhobeth4**

**PermanentlyInsane (added me two minutes ago...lol)**

**Iamawesome**

**and i hope i didnt miss anyone this time! if i did, feel free to send me a strongly worded message. lol but dont be too hurtful!**

**sorry that this update is kinda late. i have no excuse, i was just being lazy.**

**but its here now! hopefully i get some more reviews this time... any way this fanfic has been DISCLAIMED**

just go look at the previous chapters.

anyway moving on...

* * *

They reached Dominic's 2 minutes early.

"That. Was. AWESOME! "Alex said as he sat in a waiting room chair and caught his breath.

"I no." Shelley said, grinning hugely.

"ALEX! SHELLEY!" Eagle ran in a huge grin on his face.

"YOU"RE BACK!" Cat said skidding to a stop next to Eagle.

"Uhh…" Alex looked at the two soldiers, freaked out by their overly pepped up state.

"I think that would explain it." Shelley said pointing to a couple of Starbucks cups in the room the soldiers had just come from.

"Yup yup yup! We are caffeinated up to our toes!"

"Uh…Shelley lets go find out what Blunt wants." Alex said grabbing her arm and pulling her away from the soldiers she was goofing off with.

"Aww Alex don't be a party pooper!" Shelley said pouting.

He laughed, still pulling her arm along.

"Come on."

They walked into Blunt's room. They didn't expect anything less than what they saw. The man in a grey suit sitting in front of a desk that obviously hadn't been there when he had been brought in. next to him was Mrs. Jones in a new red work suit and hair in the usual sleek bob.

"Those incessant doctors won't let us leave so we'll just brief you here." Mr. Blunt said.

Shelley and Alex stood with their arms crossed and nodded their consent.

"You will still be going to SAS Camp and training with the units. The house you have bought, Alex, has been modified as you'd asked and I see you've already found your new car, Shelley. We've had it modified as you asked Alex. You are free to leave camp but you have to be back in time for training. Security has been doubled around the house and around camp after the bombing on your old house. And we have decided to provide you with guns. Both of you will have Glock 27s waiting for you at the house. Goodbye."

Alex and Shelley walked out in silence. They walked into the waiting room and found the whole unit there, waiting for them.

"Seriously? They couldn't just send us a note or something?" Shelley complained.

"Well it wouldn't be the safest method in the world." Alex replied.

"Who cares? Everybody else doesn't seem to care."

"True. Let's go talk to the unit."

"Ok." Shelley said.

"We have to go back to camp now. Training starts again in two hours and it'll take a while to get back to camp." Wolf said as soon as they walked up.

"Ok."

"Come on, the jeep is waiting outside." Snake called over his shoulder.

Shelley grinned at him.

"Actually, we'll be taking my car. Come on Alex. You guys can follow us."

"You don't even know how to get there, Shelley." Snake said exasperated.

"It's called a GPS. Ever heard of one?" she said back.

Snake rolled his eyes.

"Your funeral if you get lost."

Alex and Shelley walked out, followed by the unit. They walked to the sleek black vehicle and turned around to see the unit standing there, lusting over the beautiful car.

"Come _on,_ we have training!" Shelley yelled, grinning at their expressions. She really loved the car.

She climbed into the car after Alex. She turned and saw him smiling at her. She smiled back.

"What?"

"You really shouldn't tease them like that." He said smiling wider. "But it's really funny to see Wolf's mouth hanging open like that."

"Yea I know." Shelley said and started laughing. she sat in the car turned the ignition and blasted out of the parking lot.

* * *

They got to camp in less than half the time it usually took.

_She probably broke every traffic law that ever existed, _Alex thought. _But, damn, that was so much FUN! And she's usually telling me __**I**__ should drive better…_

They went back to K-Units barracks and played poker until K-Unit got there. They could hear Wolf talking from outside the window.

"Where's her fancy car now? They weren't even anywhere in sight after we left the parking sight. The brats probably got lost on the way here."

Stepping inside, Wolf's gloating face was immediately replaced by a look of surprise.

"Wha…how…huh?"

"Hello? Didn't you see the car in the parking lot? You cannot be that dense." Shelley teased.

"Stupid, shiny, new, black Ferrari." Wolf muttered as the rest of the Unit walked in, smiling at Wolf's babyish behavior.

"Awwww…its okay Wolfy," Eagle said as the rest of the unit questioned his sanity once again.

"Mommy will buy you a new car. It's cooler than this one cause you get to make your own noises with it! See!"

And out of nowhere, Eagle pulled out a toy black Ferrari and starting running around the room with it making really annoying noises.

"Vrooooom….vroooooom….powpow, oh no the po-po is shooting at us! Ahhhhhh! Faster, faster! Vrooooom…"

It went on and on, while Wolf's face got more and more red until finally, he snapped.

"Eagle you have until the count of ½ before I take your stupid car and throw into the lake with you still attached to it."

In less than a ¼ of a second, the car was flying out of the window and out of sight and Eagle was whistling while fixing his bed.

"Hey we should probably go, training starts in-"

_BRRRRRRIIIIING!_

"-now." Alex finished.

The unit walked outside. They all walked together to the assault course.

"Today, you soldiers are gonna be doing something different," the man standing in front of the two assembled units said.

"A-Unit and K-Unit will be going on a little camping trip. You'll be jogging to an area about 27 km from here." He continued.

He walked over to a pile of backpacks that were so filled upwith stuff; it surprised Shelley that they hadn't burst yet.

"Each of you will have one of these," he said grunting slightly as he threw each bag to one of the soldiers.

Shelley as petite as she is, would have been knocked over from the weight of the bag if Wolf hadn't been standing right behind her.

"Each bag has a compass, a map, a bottle of water, a little bit of food, sleeping bags, and other survival necessities. You will be expected to find your own food because the food in the pack is very limited. You will stay in the forest for three days. You must reach the camp by 0800 tomorrow morning."

"Now, MOVE IT SOLDIERS!" he bellowed.

The two units jogged into the forest.

* * *

"Let's sing a song!" Eagle suggested five hours later.

"Eaaaaggle no!" Cat complained.

"But I'm bored!"

"I have a better idea…" Shelley said a sinister gleam in her eye.

"Oooh I like that face!" Eagle said.

"Well the map says there's a small waterfall near here. So this is what we'll do…" Shelley started.

* * *

Alex could hear Shelley and the two SAS men talking but he didn't know what about. He didn't really care at this point. His chest was twinging and he just wanted to get out of this godforsaken forest! The air was humid because of all the wetness around him from an earlier storm and the sun had made a rare appearance over the SAS camp. And Alex was starting to get really crabby. The other unit had separated from them two hours and 37 minutes ago. He was counting the minutes until he could finally get out of this place. He hated the forest. His heightened senses picked up every movement of every bug, every sound of every animal moving through the forest. Every slight touch of a leaf left a lingering feeling of closeness that Alex hated. He didn't like being touched, Shelley being an exception. All the things his senses picked up on could cover the real things he needed to look out for. The real enemy could have been right next to him but he wouldn't notice because he was too occupied noticing every other detail of this stupid, stupid forest!

Alex's bad mood made him snappy towards Shelley. She had been talking about the beautiful lushness of the greenery around them. The same looming trees and shrubbery that caused Alex to feel claustrophobic and paranoid amazed Shelley. She loved to look at the different animals and insects on each plant and guess which plant was which. But even though he admired her optimism, the constant noises were starting to make Alex's head hurt.

"Shelley, go talk to Eagle or something. My senses are overloading and even if it was a good distraction before, the constant chattering is not helping at all."

"Fine." Shelley said insulted. She decided she was going to make Alex lighten up a bit, even if it killed her.

Suddenly, the entire group came out in a small clearing. They were standing on a small cliff and a fifteen foot water fall was running off of. Before he could understand what was happening, Alex heard a familiar voice say: "I never knew you liked to swim so much."

And then he was in the water.

His face blanched when he realized what had happened. Shelley had pushed him into the water! Slowly, Alex swam over to where Shelley was. It was hard going against the current but years of training meant that he could and would make it to where he was going. He made sure to stay low.

* * *

Wolf and Snake were shocked when they saw Shelley push Alex in. they rushed to where she was standing and started to scour the water for Alex. Eagle and Cat, on the other hand, were mimicking Alex's surprised expression right before he fell in. They doubled up with laughter.

* * *

After about a minute, Shelley started to get worried. She knew Alex could swim well but a minute was a long time to hold your breath.

_Maybe his head hit a rock… he could be bleeding to death down there!_

_Don't be ridiculous; the water would be tinged red if he was bleeding, _she berated herself.

_Well maybe his old injury started acting up…what if-_

Before she could finish her thought, she felt a hand grab her ankle and a voice that filled her with relief say "Care to join me?"

And suddenly Shelley was in the water too.

* * *

The two teens surfaced for air and realized they were about to go down the water fall.

_Well it's not __**that **__far. I've taken bigger jumps before. Like that waterfall in Africa all those years ago. And that was with a kayak! All the extra wood was way more dangerous than this._

And suddenly, as Shelley watched with horror, Alex had transferred the hand he was holding on to a solid rock on the edge of the water and dived over the edge of the water fall.

* * *

Alex felt the adrenaline coursing through his body. He felt the wind rushing through his hair. He looked down and saw the spray of water. He felt it land on his body and before he could register much more, he was in the water all over again. He popped out of the water laughing with exultation.

* * *

Quickly the Unit ran over to the cliff edge. They looked down and instead of seeing the dead body they had expected, they saw Alex laughing his head off.

_What is he nuts?_

_

* * *

_

Shelley climbed out of the water and ran over to where the unit was standing. She saw Alex's laughing figure. And then she was back in the water, flying through the air.

* * *

Alex climbed out of the water and started running up the hill to where the unit was now watching as Shelley back flipped over the cliff and into the water.

Suddenly all the guys had their shirts off and were running towards the cliffs, doing tricks and stunts as they jumped off.

_They're lucky Shelley thought to remind them to bring at least one extra pair of clothes._ Alex thought.

Then he pulled off his sopping shirt and joined in.

* * *

About half an hour later, Shelley said she was going to go change in the woods. She decided to save her energy for the rest of the hike. She walked off to the woods to go change her clothes out of sight.

Another half hour later the rest of the Unit decided that they should save energy too.

They all went and changed.

As they were walking back to where their packs had been dropped earlier Alex realized something.

"Hey, did any of you guys see Shelley out there? I haven't seen her since she left to change."

"Now that you mention it, neither have I…" Snake replied.

"Yea none of us saw her."

_Something's wrong. _

Alex felt it in his gut. And a good spy knows his gut is never wrong.

"Something's wrong." Alex said voicing his earlier thoughts.

"Come on. We have to go find her."

The unit, trusting Alex's word ran into the forest after Alex's already sprinting figure.

* * *

Shelley walked into the forest to go change. She was just finished when she realized that it was _reeeally _quiet here. She couldn't hear any birda or insects or even feel any wind. suddenly she felt in her gut.

_Something's wrong._

She whipped around and noticed a black clad figur before she could do anything, he shot to darts and she was falling to the ground.

* * *

_It is done. i have left scorpia's mark. _the black clad figure said.

he hung up the phone and watched as the girl was lifted away. then he turned around and walked into the forest.

* * *

Five minutes after entering the forest, Alex noticed a bunch of Shelley's wet clothes.

_So something happened right after she finished changing._

He went over to the clothes and almost immediately noticed the signs around him.

The leaves in this area had been stepped on. The dirt was loose and it looked like there had been a fight. Before he could go into full blown panic, Alex decided to see if there were any more clues. He realized that the unit had finally caught up.

"There was a fight," he said, emotionlessly. "Look for any clues on how they got her and who they were."

* * *

Snake knew that the emotionless mask Alex had put up was just that: a mask. Alex was holding back panic and rage so that he could think clearly.

_Damn. It must be really bad, _he thought as he started to look around. Suddenly he saw something glinting in the waning sunlight. It was wedged into a tree trunk. Going closer to it, he saw what it really was. He stepped back in shock and tripped over a log.

* * *

Alex spun around and looked at Snake sitting on the floor.

"What is it?" he said.

"Tran-tran-…"

"Spit it out."

"Tranquilizer."

"Shit."

Alex walked quickly over to the dart and pulled it out. The insignia on it was expected but still left him breathless.

A silver scorpion…

_Scorpia._

_**REVIEW!**_


	9. Chapter 9: furious

**o my god**

**i cant believe it**

**iv turned into one of THEM.**

**the people who don't update for months. im sooooooo sorry! i've been going through some things. plus school. and now all i have for you is 449 words of really bad writing. i think i need help. im in a rut! AHHHHH! i'm gonna stop now. i have nothing else to say. **

_What the hell? Where am I? And why does my head feel like there's a million oompa loompas singing their annoying songs in there? And why did I just think of oompa loompas? _

These were the thoughts that ran through Shelley's head when she woke up.

She looked around, subconsciously trying to find any exits.

The room she was in had only one door with no doorknob. There were no windows and no vents.

_Shit. I hate having to be rescued. Well… nothing to do but wait now. Might as well do something to pass time._

Shelley started doing pushups.

Alex stormed out of the car, parked on the side of Liverpool Street. Pedestrians rushed to get out of his way when they saw his face. He slammed open the frosted glass doors of the Royal and General Bank. The secretary just stared, wide eyed, at the cracks that spread across the bullet proof doors.

He was walking so fast by now, he was almost a blur. He slammed the call button for the elevators so hard, it got stuck.

He stormed out of the elevator when it arrived on the fifteenth floor and pushed open the door to office number 1605. Alex saw Alan Blunt just sitting in his gray chair, hands clasped on the desk. He had been expecting this.

It didn't make him any less furious.

"What the hell Blunt?" he raged, teeth clenched.

"We're not sure what happened, Alex. But don't worry; we have agents finding out what happened right now."

"You don't know what happened? YOU'RE THE BLOODY MI6! How the hell do you not know how someone got into one of the most secure training facilities in the world and kidnapped one of your best agents?

Actually, I DON'T CARE what happened! You can redo your security later. Right now, you're gonna call your stupid bloody agents off and they're gonna help me get Shelley back."

The last part, Alex said with a chilling calm. It was more frightening than when he was yelling. He had his emotionless mask on again. When he was done speaking, he expected Blunt to spout out some crap and refuse to help him. But to his surprise, Blunt turned to Mrs. Jones (who Alex hadn't even realized was there. That can't be good.), and told her to do what Alex said.

Alex realized that both Blunt and Mrs. Jones looked scared of him. They were actually _scared_ of him. It was only a faint glimmer in their eyes, but it was more than he'd ever seen from them. But he was too pissed about this whole situation to care right then. Actually it made him feel good.

**nd thnk to my reviewers:**

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	10. Chapter 10: sleep

**uploading next chapter right after this...**

K-Unit was quiet. As soon as Alex had hissed the word _Scorpia,_ Snake, being the most sensible of the group, had radioed the situation in back to headquarters. All the units had been ordered back too their barracks. Cat remembered Alex's murderous face from his push up position on the ground. Alex had turned around and sprinted back towards camp before Snake had even finished explaining the situation to the sergeant. By the time the rest of the Unit got back he was already gone, along with Shelley's car. Not for the first time Alex Rider was gone without a word. The unit just hoped he would eventually come back, and if they were lucky, without a coffin.

* * *

Alex had stopped at their new house for only two minutes to change cars since Shelley's was out of gas. Then he had made his way to Royal and General Bank. But as soon as he was done yelling at Blunt and Jones and gotten the information he would need, he was back in his car driving towards the house. He needed his gadgets and a disguise and then he would be in a helicopter to the one place in his memory he hated more than anywhere else in the world.

_**Malogosto.**_

Alex screeched into the garage. Quickly he was out of the car and in his room. He walked into his room, almost an exact replica of Shelley's other than the men's clothes in the closet and the blue paint.

he was walking to his closet when suddenly the doorbell rang.

_What the hell? No one knows this address but MI6. And they'd just storm their way in._

Instead of opening the door he made his way over to the bank of computers in his closet. The security cameras were hooked up to it and showed four familiar looking men standing outside. As soon as Alex saw the backs of the heads of K-Unit, he was at the door, wrenching it open.

"inside. Quick." That was all he said.

But instead of coming inside a small whirring was heard and Alex was slumping to the floor.

* * *

Snake felt guilty about shooting Alex with the serum and he had no doubt that he would be _pissed _when he woke up. But he needed to sleep before he was going anywhere as dangerous as where Blunt had told them he was going to go. He had asked the sergeant to send the unit in as back up almost as soon as Alex had left his office.

Mrs. Jones had been the one to suggest making him sleep. Obviously, since its not like Blunt cared about him as long as both of his best agents were back.

And once he had seen Alex, Snake had agreed to making the boy sleep. Spy or not, you need to sleep. And after what Alex had been through in the last couple of hours, he probably needed it more than anyone else.

He was jolted out of his thought as Wolf began to give orders.

"Cat and Snake, take him to his room. Actually maybe you should take him to Shelley's room. It should be whichever one is messy as hell. That girl is one of the biggest slobs I have ever met."

Nobody laughed though they would have any other time.


	11. Chapter 11: burn

**No excuses. I don't think they're important. Sorry for not updating:P**

**I'm horrible.**

**Disclaimer: not mine **

Snake was wrong. When Alex woke up, he wasn't pissed. He was a little mad that he'd been shot with a tranquilizing serum, but more than that Alex was frustrated and upset. Though being in Shelley's room kept the nightmares away, it did nothing to help him forget that Shelley was gone and could be going through any kinds of torture. And her being a traitor to Scorpia guaranteed that she would not get out of their unscathed without some help soon. But he knew he needed to calm down if he was gonna help her. So he took some deep breaths and walked out of the room to go meet the rest of his team.

* * *

When Alex walked out of the room, snake looked at him guiltily. He knew he didn't know what the boy was going through but he did know that those hours he spent asleep, did nothing to stop Alex's guilt. But all Alex did was look at the team members, already suited up and ready to go, and gave the order:

"Let's go."

* * *

Snake was piloting Alex's helicopter. They didn't really have a plan yet other than scoping out Malagosto from the nearby coast of Italy. But for now that was enough.

Alex was sitting in his seat, eyes closed, mind whirling with thoughts of Shelley and the different types of tortures he knew of. _And I don't even want to know about all the new types of tortures the psychopaths have thought of. _The sound of gears slipping jolted Alex out of his thoughts.

"What the hell was _that?"_

"I have no idea. But I'm pretty sure it's not a good thing."

And then they were falling.

Fire was blazing all around him and Alex couldn't think of anything to do to get them out of this mess. He could smell his hair burning. His skin felt hot and his shoes felt like they were melting. Looked like the luck of the devil finally ran out. _And right when I couldn't need it more. Figures._

That was the last thing he thought before everything went dark.

K-Unit watched in horror as the helicopter carrying their teammates plunged into the ocean.

**I know its short. But I hated the last couple chapters and I couldn't figure out where to go with it. plus i get distracted by reading and forget all about typing on this website. I know excuses are irrelevant but I realized I owed you some.**

**another thing. im not sure how much i screwed up while uploading this so just tell me if i got chapters confused/skipped. i'll try to fix it. oh and sorry for all the mistakes but im supposed to be asleep now and im to tired to go back and check.**

**On the bright side, I now have an outline of the ENTIRE rest of the story and just need to find time to type it:P**

**and now there are to many peoples' names to type and too many names i deleted by mistake so i guess i can just say im thankful all of my wonderful reviewers/favoriters who stuck by me.**

**Review if your still with me. Please…x[**


	12. Chapter 12: somber

_Where is he? _Shelley thought. She was starting to get desperate. She knew Alex; she knew something had gone wrong because he wasn't here yet. The daily torture sessions were starting to take their toll on her. She was jumpy; the slightest noises made her tense and look for signs of danger. The heavy footsteps she was now familiar with scared the crap out of her. They signaled the arrival of a man so disgustingly handsome; it perplexed her how such beauty could be in the hands of evil. He looked to be in his mid twenties, with silky looking jet black hair and bright blue eyes that reminded her of the sky during the summer when it was hard to look at. He had lightly tanned skin that made her think he was Italian. She didn't know his name and he never said anything to her. The only direct contact they'd had was when he was tying her wrists into an uncomfortably wide angle with rope that was too short to allow her feet to touch the ground. And she would hang there in that position for hours on end as the man whipped her or cut thousands of shallow cuts into her skin or other even more horror inspiring tortures that she cringed to even think about thinking about.

It had already been two weeks. If anything, Alex would have contacted her.

But he hadn't, and Shelley was worried…more than she'd ever been in her entire life.

_But there's nothing I can do but wait._

So she did, putting her trust into Alex's love and the knowledge that he would be doing everything he could to get to her.

* * *

Mrs. Jones paced in front of Blunt's desk breathing deeply, clenching and unclenching her fists in a vain attempt at calming down. Blunt sat as gray and emotionless as ever at his seat, not moving a muscle other than his eyes which followed Mrs. Jones movements as she wore a path into the gray carpet. K-Unit stood in front of Mrs. Jones, frantic with thoughts of their missing team mates.

"Mrs. Jones, would you STOP PACING?" Wolf said, ending the sentence at a much louder decibel than the one at which he'd started.

Jones stood still closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose looking, for the entire world, just like a worried mother.

Abruptly she turned towards blunt and asked

"Well? What are we going to do now?"

"At least we know no one's dead. Scorpia would have been gloating about killing Alex if they had."

The speaker was surprisingly not Blunt. It was Snake. Neck brace, cast on his right arm, a leg fractured in three places…but it could have been so much worse. K-Unit had gotten to work as soon as they saw the helicopter go down. Cat, the best swimmer, had dived into the ocean as soon as they could get to a distance that wouldn't break his neck. Less than a minute later, a speed boat had pulled up, a white flag with a red cross flying at its bow, the international symbol for medical help. Three minutes later, Cat's head bobbed out of the water, tank glistening and arms straining as he dragged up a weight almost a heavy as himself. He'd found Snake. But there was no sign of Alex and after thoroughly searching the ocean for a thirty mile radius, a total of 15 hours, they had been forced to declare Alex MIA, although where he could've gone in the middle of the ocean when the only boats in sight were MI6 was a total mystery.

"We'll find him." Wolf stated in the tone he only used when he required full obedience from his team. It was a command, not an offering of condolence.

"You are one man short of an official team. You're not going into the field." Blunt said speaking for the first time since these people had entered his office.

"Get them a replacement," Snake suggested. "Temporarily. I think we'd all feel better about the rescuers being K-Unit then people who've never dealt with Alex before."

"I'll do it," Jones said walking out of the office before another word could be spoken.

The unit left the office, the sound of the slamming door penetrating the deathly silence that seemed to follow the unit.

* * *

_Where the hell am I? And why am I not dead? _Alex thought as he woke up in a room so dark, he couldn't see his hand, even when it was close enough to touch his nose.

* * *

**its later than i planned but its here... my chapters are gonna be much much shorter than they used to be. theres not enough time!**

**ugh**

**fudge monkeys.**

**im taking down the authors notes too cause i heard they're not supposed to stay up that long. **

**review!**

**DISCLAIMER: i forgot to put it at the begginning and now im too lazy to scroll up**

**i shall own Alex Rider when ****flying cewy chips ahoy cookies that throw themselves at little evil people called little brothers are invented.**


	13. Chapter 13: waking up

**as you can see i have changed my pen name. it was originally cjpatel05 and then i got bored with it. plus this one is much more related to me. anyway...ONWARDS!**

He sat up, wincing.

_Damn that hurts!_

He looked around. The room was suddenly bathed in a white light that hurt his eyes. When his eyes finally adjusted, he looked around, taking in his surroundings out of habit. The room was, quite obviously, a holding cell, even though someone had tried to disguise the fact by putting in a queen-size bed, a night stand, a closet and a bathroom. They had failed miserably though, as all the furniture was bright white.

_What the hell happened?_

He squeezed his eyes shut against the brightness of the room and thought back. All he could remember was an intense burning heat that seared his skin, his hair his clothes, even his eyeballs; the heat burned him alive.

His eyes flew open as the sound of a slamming door shattered his thoughts. He watched as the door was shut again, blending in so well with the wall around it, you wouldn't have known it existed.

A man walked in, stirring something in the back of his mind as he took in the scar across his throat and his icy blue eyes.

_I know him..._he thought. But he couldn't, for all he was worth (which was quite a lot to the country of Britain) figure out who the man standing in front of him was. Though the sinister smile screamed at his senses, Alex couldn't help but trust him.

"Hello Alex."

* * *

Shelley was thrown back into the cell harshly. Blood poured from her nose and when she spit, it was with a reddish tint. But she would stay strong. No matter how many times they broke her body, how hungry she was and how many times they attacked her with their vicious words…she would not break. He was coming for her. He had to be. It was what he had promised to do and Alex Rider was a man of his word.

It had been a month.

Shelley collapsed against the metal bunk.

_I love you…_her last thoughts before she lost consciousness floated into the cosmos.

* * *

"How do you know my name?" Alex asked in a toneless voice. By this point, Alex knew that he was missing some really important memories.

"We've met. Maybe you'll remember someday."

_Although I'm definitely not the one who's gonna help you do THAT…_thought the man.

"Unfortunately for you, the serum you were injected with prevents you from accessing that information, as well as much else, at the present moment."

_What is it with villains and injections? They're not doctors for god's sake! _Alex thought.

"I remember enough," he replied.

"Only enough to keep you alive. No more. No less," the man replied.

At this, Alex heard a slight lilt in the man's diction.

_Russian?_

_

* * *

_

And indeed it was. Yassen Gregorovich had only failed at two things in his life: killing Alex Rider (though that had happened repeatedly, if he was being brutally honest) and completely eliminating his accent.

He had to force himself not to rub at the scar over his heart as he thought about the last time he and the boy had met. Though he was glad he wasn't dead, Yassen would have much rather he were dead so he didn't have to go through this whole situation with Alex yet again.

But Scorpia had a way of screwing with your life even after you were "dead" and he wouldn't be the one to change their ways.

No, that would have to be Alex.

And maybe that girl he had with him…

* * *

"I don't remember much, you're right about that. But I remember enough to know that there is nothing you could do to weaken me. Once you have no one, you no longer have any weaknesses. So why don't you just go tell your boss to give up and let me go. There's nothing I can do anyway…" Alex tried, even though he knew the attempt was pathetic.

"Now now, we all know you deserve just a little more credit than that Rider. But as it is, I shall leave you for now. I suggest you rest up before tomorrow morning. You can be sure, from now on, your life won't be as easy as it is at the moment" the man said wryly. For some reason, his tone irked Alex.

"Right. Because losing your memory after being awakened by a lunatic is easy. Ah well, what what is being captured without a little torture? I was hoping they (_whoever __they__ are)_ would stop at forcing me to look at you would be the end of it, but all you lunatics are the same. Keep playing with the toy until it breaks. But I think you'll find that this toy is made of harder stuff than the usual," Alex said smirking. He stopped abruptly though as he realized the man was just smiling at him placidly.

"We like to call it training, but it is, for all intents and purposes, torture."

Alex turned to walk into the bathroom.

"Who the hell are you anyway?"

But when he turned around to look at the man as he gave his answer, he faced an empty, once again silent, room.

He groaned, frustrated. Somehow, he wasn't surprised.

**This chapter is dedicated to a reviewer named ****NoelAnderson**** who, with four little words, helped me get my lazy ass into gear. Now as you read (or don't read. Idk) this I am continuing on to the first part of the next chapter. I hope to have it done sometime this week but well… you never know. Anywhoos I hope you people are still out there. thanks to those of you left reviews last time! Leave me a word if you're there:D **


	14. Chapter 14: and they meet again

**well it has now been over a year since i first started this story. i feel pathetic:P**

**hopefully no one will hate me too much for this.**

**oh and special apology to Insanity is my second name. sorry this took me so long to churn out! i hope a special something in this chapter will make up for it! and i really hope you don't mind but i had to change some bits and pieces here and there to make them fit with my ideas for the story.**

* * *

Alex was completely exhausted. He walked through the line in the cafeteria in a daze.

When he'd first woken up two weeks ago, he'd been so assured of himself and his abilities. He didn't think anything these people threw at him could be any worse than what he'd already been through.

But evidently he had been wrong. the thousands of facts and information on poisons, disguises, identities, assassinations, interrogation and much else that had been drilled into his head had him feeling like his brain was going to explode.

The training here was literally ten times worse than the training he had been through with the SAS before his first mission. And since then he had apparently been on nineteen more missions and lived without any permanent damage. Well accept for his mission with Scorpia…that had left permanent scars all over his mental health.

Scorpia…

The name stirred some deep feeling of recognition in him. But the only thing he could do was ponder at the reason that the Russian man was the one who came to mind when he tried to think about it. He concentrated intensely on trying to find the connection. He knew he almost had it…

His head exploded in pain and he blacked out in the middle of the mess hall.

* * *

2 hours later:

Alex woke up, back in the holding cell that had been his "home", for lack of a better description, for the past month and a half. He took stock of his surroundings, automatically noting the two figures standing by his bedside.

_What happened? God, I seem to ask myself that a lot these days._

The Russian man was the first to speak.

"You really shouldn't think so hard alex. Look at where it's gotten you," he smirked.

_That seems to be one of the only expressions that man has. _Alex thought irritably.

"Enough," the woman beside him spoke quietly.

"Alex you have been activated."

* * *

She hoped that this decision wouldn't come back to bite her in the ass. But her doctors were confident that his memories were so far suppressed that the chances of them coming to the surface were almost nonexistent. But you can never win without a little risk and Emily Rothman-Ambrose knew it, being the sister of Julia Rothman and the wife of Randy Rothman, as well as the _real _mastermind behind Scorpia's New Era.

* * *

Shelley was still holding on to hope. She hadn't given into any type of torture these people had put her through. And it seemed like they had finally given up. She hadn't been bothered in the past three days. The only contact anyone had had with her was when the guard came to give her "food". She almost wished she could have the slop made by the chef at the SAS camp. But she was finally starting to feel a little better. Though malnourished, at least she was being given time for her injuries to heal. Her good mood diminished, however, as the door to her cell was slammed open.

But when she saw who had walked through the door, she jumped up to her feet, ignoring her body's protests and beamed with joy. Alex was finally here to save her.

* * *

Alex didn't want to do this.

He didn't want to do this at all. he was going to have to interrogate a prisoner while babysitting one of the newest recruits of his organization, the New Era (the name seemed pretentious to him, but there was nothing he could do about it). The 16 year old girl's name was Charlotte Belle Flint as she kept pointing out with her haughty and sarcastic voice. She had curly brown hair just past her shoulders, green eyes and a tall and slim yet athletic figure emphasized by the leather jeans, black fitted tank top, topped with a leather jacket and base ball cap she had on. she had had some training and therefore knew how to fight but hadn't had much experience with firearms yet.

when he'd first met her, he was sure she was younger. But he was quickly disillusioned when, as he was protesting her company during the interrogation, she had become angered and had displayed her witty, sarcastic and yet extremely childish personality. her exact words were:

"Bring it on SHITFACE," her fists raised as she jumped around on the balls of her feet like a professional boxer in the ring. "You won't be such an arrogant cocky bastard once i knock out a few teeth!"

Alex couldn't help but chuckle condescendingly at her childishness.

she then proceeded to stick her tongue out, her eyes looking in two different directions, and scratching her nose with her middle finger.

but despite her fake bravado, Alex could tell, this girl did not belong. and he knew that if he could he'd protect her from what she was about to see. because despite what she wanted to believe, he knew that she was innocent; probably another poor soul picked up by these people when she had no where to go. and he already regarded her as a little sister in a way. he didn't want her to see what came next, what he knew would happen after he walked into the cell.

but there was a bigger reason he didn't want to step into this cell.

He didn't want to have to break the spirit of the girl inside this cell. He'd been observing her for the past few days…she was extremely strong. Nothing had been able to break down the walls of her mind. He wondered what kept her anchored to her will.

What kept her going? Why was she so determined not to give up the secrets of the organization that had used her and killed her parents?

He'd been told about the organization she worked for. They had burned her home to the ground and kidnapped her. They'd molded her into a killing machine. At least that was the information that he'd been given. So why wasn't she desperate for revenge? Did she not care that the very people she was helping had taken her life from her?

No matter what the answer, he needed her to give up the answers to his questions soon, or she'd be killed. And something inside of his heart protested strongly against the idea of her being hurt. He needed to make sure nothing happened to her, though God knows why he felt that way.

* * *

But when she looked at his face she knew. Shelley _knew _there was something wrong with him. Because his face held not a glimmer of recognition and not a hint of the warmth his gaze usually held when he gazed at her. Something had gone terribly wrong after the explosion. It seemed he didn't remember anything! But how could that be? He was still walking with the self assured gait of a man who had encountered and avoided death many tomes. But his next words confirmed her thoughts.

"Answer the questions and I won't kill you."

Her Alex was gone. And so was all her hope.

* * *

**Like i said, insanity is my second name, things were changed around a little. well actually i just switched the names cuz they sounded better to me this way... anyway thanks for being in my story! i hope i didnt botch up her introduction...i actually added that part after i'd finished writing the rest of the chapter. hopefully it didnt mess up the flow but if it did, pm me and yell at me for not doing this sooner:)**


	15. Chapter 15: revelation

Charlotte watched through the one way window as Alex walked into the room. She may not have the experience and training she had but she'd always been good at reading people. Despite what he projected to the outside world, she could read the small hesitance in his steps. He didn't want to do this and she knew it.

Her gaze turned to the girl in the cell with him. Her file said her name was Shelley Mason. In a way, she realized, Shelley's life was a lot like her own. Her family had been killed by the same people she'd later come to trust. Though her family's deaths were much more fresh in her mind, having occurred in the last year. The shots still rang out in her head when she closed her eyes.

_No. I'm done with that part of my life. Its over. Scorpia got me out. And now no matter what I think of their morals, I need to live. I need to live for my family. For Tommy._

Tommy (actually Thomas) was Charlotte's twin brother. He'd supposedly died with her family in the "random drive by" that killed her mother, father, and baby sister. But his body had never been found and she knew in her heart that he had to be alive. She would know if he was dead. And despite all the facts that said otherwise, she knew that Scorpia could help her. they would have the information she needed to find her brother and that was the real reason she was still here. She didn't agree with Scorpia's MO. Killing, stealing and torturing were not things she would have been able to handle if she didn't know it would help her find her brother.

And she WOULD find him.

* * *

Shelley knew there was only one thing she could do now. She was a spy and her instincts were to save the mission. But to do that would either mean suicide…or murdering the man she loved. She couldn't let that happen. She knew the time had come. She had promised to herself that she would give Alex 2 months before she called them in because she believed the mission could still be salvaged if Alex came soon enough. But she hadn't counted on Alex losing his memory like a damn movie!

She reached around her neck and lightly pressed into the implant on the back of her neck for three seconds. Immediately, in a room hundreds of miles away from her current location, a red light had begun to blink in rapid succession. It would keep blinking until she died or was saved.

* * *

In a room under an innocuous bank, a man had started to become very excited. They had been waiting for almost 2 months for any sign of them. And finally Smithers had found it. right in the middle of him inventing yet another crazy gadget, a light started blinking on the radar he had been diligently watching for 6 weeks.

_The girl had done it! she'd managed to activate the tracker!_

He knew the tracker would be a smart addition to her gadgets. his instincts had been telling him that something was going to go horribly wrong with this mission and how correct he had been! He wasted no more time worrying about the reactions of the higher ups when they found he'd given her an unauthorized gadget. No, he just ran as fast as his pudgy body could carry him to the personal elevator in his office and went to tell Blunt and Jones the news.

* * *

Alex was shocked as he looked into the prisoner's eyes for the first time after he said those words. something about them stirred a feeling in him much deeper than any before. He realized that for some reason, he loved those eyes. Not even the similar green eyes Charlotte had could compare to the eyes of this girl. They were somber and sad and pained. And he knew he had to try to get her out of this. he wanted that pain to disappear and be replaced by a mischievous sparkle he somehow knew they would twinkle with under normal circumstances. He hadn't even heard a word from her yet he felt he could trust this girl with his life.

He wished he could take back the words he'd just said. He'd never hurt this sad yet beautiful creature in front of him. He didn't want to scare her.

He looked towards the one way window he knew Charlotte would be watching through. Somehow he knew that she wouldn't stop him from carrying out the plan now forming in his head.

* * *

"What's your name?" he asked her. those words single handedly obliterated the last vestiges of hope from Shelley's heart. Or that is what would have happened if she hadn't, at the final moment, realized that his voice was no longer hard and threatening. The words he'd used this time were iof simple curiousity. His tone was comforting and soft instead of the deadly chill she had been expecting.

_Is it possible? Could he possibly feel the same as he had before this whole mess?_

It sure sounded like it.

"Shelley Mason. And I know who you are Alex. You wouldn't hurt me. I know it," she stated with a deep heartfelt conviction that shocked him to his core.

_How does she know?_

"How do you know?" he asked, his tone once more guarded though not nearly as much as when hed first walked into this room.

"Because I love you."

* * *

Alex's head reeled.

* * *

In the observation room, Charlotte stumbled over her feet as she heard this strange chick say the last words she would have ever expected.

* * *

**as mentioned, a quicker update:D**


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